Time of Echoes
by Esther Kirkland
Summary: A series of oneshots set in my reversed AU where John was the victim of Moriarty's schemes. Thus, in the aftermath of the events shown in Dark Mirror, we shall watch the seperate lives of the detective and the blogger, set more-or-less in real time, until BBC gives me a reunion scene to mirror. Highly reccomended that you read Dark Mirror first.
1. Excuses and Managing

**Time of Echoes**

_Sherlock: Excuses_

September 29

Sherlock stared at the computer screen and the lines of code that flashed across it. The bluish light reflected across his gaunt face, and he rubbed one wrist tiredly. His lips moved in a silent mutter, and his eyes flicked from side to side, decoding and processing information as quickly as a computer—probably quicker than most.

Suddenly, the light overhead switched on, flooding the room with annoying illumination.

Sherlock sat back in his chair with a sigh and glared with bleary eyes at the intruder.

"Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson scolded. "You haven't moved since I last looked in."

"You look in too frequently," he growled, rubbing his neck.

She huffed. "It's been two _days_."

"Oh." He blinked and checked his watch. "Has it, then?"

"I brought you up a nice bit of roast and some fresh tea, then," the landlady said, bustling into the kitchen and setting a dish and a thermos on the table. "You need to eat more."

"I'm on a case." He turned his eyes back to the computer screen, effectively tuning her out.

"Sherlock."

The sudden change in Mrs. Hudson's tone managed to reclaim his attention. He looked up at her, suddenly recalling the feeling of being caught, as a child, at midnight in the kitchen, with a bottle of chocolate syrup in his hand.

"Sherlock, you're always on a case these days."

It was true. In the nearly-five months since John's death, and the three since he had agreed to help his brother tear down Moriarty's web, Sherlock's days had been one new project after another. All cogs and gears of his one _real _case: finding John's killer. He was never bored anymore, though somehow, the empty feeling of the boredom still came.

"You need to _rest_," she continued, "What would—"

"Yes, you're right, Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock stood up quickly, cutting off the rest of her sentence: _what would John say?_ "You usually are." He graced her with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, and entered the kitchen, fetching down a plate and a mug from the cabinet. Funny how he always had clean dishes these days. He found himself cleaning up the flat when his mind demanded short breaks from investigating.

"You just sit down there," she ordered him, the motherly tone back in her voice. "I'll get you all set up and just sit here until you eat all of it."

He was somewhat annoyed by her intrusion, but stifled the feeling. She was only trying to help, after all, and she was right in her analysis. Much as he detested the notion, he was still only human. And Mrs. Hudson's pot roast was notoriously good.

She puttered about the kitchen as he tucked into the tender beef, her fluttery voice chasing out the shadows that tended to accumulate around the lonely detective. He ought to get a new flatmate, his practical side knew, but he didn't have the time or patience to find someone and train them properly.

That was the excuse he made to himself anyway.

He found himself making a lot of excuses these days.

* * *

_John: Managing_

September 29

"You know, I really can handle this myself."

John watched the young nurse struggle to set up the folding lawn chair, which seemed to have a devious mind of its own that delighted in trying to poke the poor man in the eye.

"No, sir," he panted, "I've got it, I've—" With a final yank, he popped the chair into place. "There."

"Well done," John said, his voice wry. Using the walker he despised and moving with ginger care, he maneuvered himself over to the chair and sat down—slowly. A shattered femur, cracked pelvis, and three still-healing ribs were no encouragements to quick movement, he had discovered the hard way.

The September sky overhead was bright, with wispy strands of pale clouds streaked across its blue belly. The garden he sat in smelled ever-so-faintly of dark mould and toasting leaves, but it was warm for the season. He tried to ignore the high brick walls that enclosed the spacious garden, and closed his eyes against the sun's warming rays.

"All settled in, sir?"

"Hm? Oh, yes. Thank you." John smiled, a quick brief smile that didn't rise past his cheeks, and the young nurse hurried off.

John sighed. He felt like an old, old man. Painkillers dulled his senses, lingering pain kept him moving as if he would shatter at the slightest provocation, and a general feeling of…dullness hung over him.

Sherlock thought he was dead.

He might as well _be_ dead, for all the good he was doing. Stuck here, in Mycroft's special compound who-knew-where on God's green earth. It _felt_ like England, but for all John knew they could have been in North America or Russia or…anywhere. He saw nothing of the land around the compound—the place was surrounded by the brick walls on every side, and few of the inner rooms of the palatial building even had windows. All he knew was the sky, and that most of the staff had English accents. In other words: nothing.

He needed something to _do_. Sitting here in this walled-in garden, with nothing to occupy his time but brooding, was going to turn John into an old man before long. As a doctor, he understood that he needed time to recuperate. But while his body mended, wasn't there something his _mind_ could be doing?

There was one person to ask.

John hoisted himself to his feet and dragged his walker—blasted, old-man tool—in front of him. Step by aching, painstaking step, he worked his way back up the concrete walkway to the door of the red-brick building. The young nurse reappeared, appearing like a nervous genie at John's elbow, but he waved the boy away. "Just working the muscles," he said, managing an insincere smile. "I know what I'm doing."

He knew now, from the last three months of activity, the basic floor plan for the main level of the building, and he knew exactly where to find his captor this time of day. He pushed open the heavy wooden door of the study and maneuvered his walker inside.

"Mycroft," he said, standing up straight. "How can I help?"


	2. Insomnia and Preparation

**_Sherlock: Insomnia_**

October 4

Sherlock lay in his bed, the covers pulled up in a straight line over his chest, and his arms crossed behind his head. He stared up at the shadowy ceiling, feeling his eyelids burn in need of a blink, but he loathed closing them for even that millionth of a second.

He had never been plagued with nightmares before—he had dreams, of course, any normal person did. Sometimes those dreams were even weird or unsettling or chilling. But it was an extremely rare occurrence that he would actually have a _nightmare_. Or at least, that had been the case for most of his life. In the months since Moriarty had ended his sadistic game, Sherlock had woken more and more often in the night, a cold sweat on his skin and a feeling of terror in his gut.

Maddeningly, though, he could never remember _what_ he had dreamed about.

He glanced over at the clock, glowing green in the darkness. _4:32_, the digital readout reported.

No use. He wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep. Might as well get up and be productive.

Dragging his long form out of bed, Sherlock wrapped his dressing gown around his shoulders and padded down to the living room, where his faithful laptop waited. For the last week, he had been tracking a lead through IP addresses and blogs and past firewalls and in vacated email accounts. Unfortunately, in the last day, the trail had gone cold—dead ended. There was no name on the other side of the screen, no offshore address to follow. Just a string of meaningless code that grinned at him and mocked his ability to track down the spider at the center of the web.

Scooping up his Blackberry from the coffee table, Sherlock shot off a quick text to his brother.

_Agate trail dead end. Need new lead. –SH_

To his surprise—it wasn't even five in the morning yet, after all—Mycroft replied within minutes, with a link to a website. Sherlock opened the page on his laptop and felt his lips curl with satisfaction. To all appearances a reputable antiques dealership, the site featured a name on its "Staff" page that he recognized.

Jude Tyrone. American, educated at Harvard, with a movie-star physique and a reputation for being a sort of Renaissance-man. Dabbled in music, wrote a moderately-profitable book on the history of Ethiopian politics, was good friends with recognizable names in nearly every field of science and the arts. And, though it could never be proved, a man who made his fortune trafficking black-market antiquities.

Moriarty's kind of man.

Sherlock's phone chirped with another message from Mycroft.

_He's in Cardiff on business. Arrange a meeting? –MH_

The reply was as swift as insomniac fingers could type.

_Tomorrow. –SH_

* * *

**_John: Preparation_**

October 4

"This," Mycroft said, giving a nod with his head that would have translated to an expansive arm-sweep in any other man, "Will be your center of operations."

John took in the small, well-lit room, its selection of desks and computer monitors and businesslike chairs. "No window?" he asked, his voice half absent.

Mycroft didn't bother answering that. "From here, you can watch every front—you'll need clearance from me before you can actually _do_ anything, but once you have an idea of what all is going on, I have no objection to your joining in." He shot John a warning glare. "Surreptitiously, of course."

"I'm not an idiot," John said without rancor, moving his curse-worthy walker into the room and bending over to examine one of the computer monitors. "Just dead."

Mycroft actually loosed a small laugh at that. "Indeed." He gestured toward the computers. "These screens show the current—or at least most recently known—whereabouts of each member of Moriarty's gang. The ones we know of, anyway." He pointed at a series of maps, global and more localized, with color-coded dots denoting the position of each suspect. John glanced at it, and motioned to the one nearest the door.

"And this?"

"That," Mycroft said, bending over to use the computer's mouse, "Is our record of Moriarty's assets—bank accounts, stocks, you name it. If he or any of his crew spends a cent, we know about it." He shrugged. "Well…in theory."

John smirked and sat down at the last bank of computers. His leg was aching like fire—must be some sort of weather change coming in. "And these?"

"Ah." The suave Holmes brother straightened and dipped his head at the trio of screens on the long desk before John. "If I were a gambling man, I would bet that these will quickly become your favorite."

"And why's that?" Right now, they looked like nothing much: three blank screens with a spinning screensaver that read _ross._ "Who's Ross?"

"Not who, _what_," Mycroft corrected. He pressed a key and the screens flared to life. "R.O.S.S: Remote Observation and Support System."

The screens filled with footage from eight or nine cameras, all focused from different angles, and all showing 221B Baker Street.

"This is your job, John," Mycroft said. "You'll be monitoring Sherlock's movements during operations, keeping our backup teams informed as to his progress and status. If he gets into trouble, you'll be the first to know, and the one to send in assistance."

John felt a flicker of honest-to-goodness excitement in his chest that he hadn't felt in months. He leaned forward, folding his hands under his chin.

"You're putting a lot of confidence in me," he pointed out.

Mycroft looked down at John, meeting his eyes for the first time that day.

"There's no one I would rather trust with Sherlock's safety," he said. "Not even myself."

John nodded slowly.

"Well, then," he said, straightening and slapping his knees. "Let's get started."


	3. Static and Electricity

_John: Static_

October 9

John was beginning to wonder if he was a stalker.

_Stalker: (stôk·er) __**n. **__a person who stealthily hunts or observes an animal or another person with unwanted and/or obsessive attention_.

He stared, eyes drooping, at the static-buzzed computer screen in front of him, and wished he had the ability to step through the monitor and into the scene beyond. Baker Street, 221. Sandwich shop next door, doing a brisk trade this October afternoon, people passing by at a stroll or a jog. But the one person he was watching for hadn't stepped foot outside in three days. There had been a bit of excitement last week, over an American smuggler, but all that had come of it was a confiscated collection of rare and valuable books—no new information on Moriarty's web, and nothing to keep Sherlock busy as far as John could tell.

If John could only get into the flat and drag his erstwhile flatmate out of the lethargic fog boredom dropped over the detective. But, if John could simply walk into 221b, the main reason for Sherlock's lethargy—namely, a lack of leads in the hunt to find John Watson's killer—wouldn't exist, and neither would the lethargy.

…He was going to rot his brain thinking in circles like that.

Mrs. Hudson was their woman on the inside—or, at least, she was Mycroft's mole. Even _she_ didn't know that John was alive, but through Mycroft, she kept him posted as to the health and wellbeing of Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft had suggested putting cameras and listening devices _inside _the flat, and John had been honestly tempted for all of about fifteen seconds. Much as he would have loved to be inside the flat, at least vicariously, he would never consent to invading _anyone's_ privacy like that, let alone Sherlock's. Besides…being able to _watch_ his best friend at all hours of the day without being able to speak to him or yell at his carelessness with explosive liquids could very well drive John insane.

But as he sat there, hour after hour—occasionally leaving for a brisk walk around the closed-in garden to keep his leg mending, or to grab a sandwich from the well-staffed kitchen, or simply grab a new Jack London novel from the library—John began to reconsider.

"Come on, Sherlock…signs of life," he muttered at the static screen. Watching his friend mope about and being unable to do anything about it might drive him crazy, but he couldn't guarantee that watching the monotonous footage of _nothing_ wouldn't get him there just as soon.

He sighed, and reopened his book.

_The trouble with him_, he read,_ was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances…_John heard another voice in his memory, and smirked at the black and white letters on the page. "You see, but you do not observe," he muttered to the character. "That'll get you every time." He glanced back up at the screens, and saw nothing but grainy footage and a closed door and returned to his reading, keeping half an eye on the computer monitors.

_Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost…_

* * *

_Sherlock: Electricity_

October 9

Sherlock Holmes paced the length of the small flat, from window to door, and back, window to door, and back, heedless of the path he was probably wearing in the hardwood floor. The answer was staring him in the face, he was _certain_ of it, but he couldn't quite grasp it. His brain rattled on at a million miles an hour, with nothing for it to slow down and grip, nothing to impede its kamikaze progress.

"Fifty-eight volumes," he suddenly said, whirling to jab a finger at the half-unpacked crate of books that sat in front of the fireplace. "Why fifty-eight? Is that significant? Fifty-eight – 58 has an aliquot sum of 32. Second composite number…no, too complicated." He continued to run through ideas, physically tossing them aside with a flick of the wrist as he discarded them "Atomic number of cerium…no. John Cage album. Bad luck in South America. 1858, the Lincoln-Douglas debates. 1958, Sputnik crashes…"

Why fifty-eight? Was he over-thinking? He threw a pillow across the room, paced across, picked it up, and threw it to the other side.

Fifty-eight, fifty-eight…He was about to pull his hair out. What if each book stood for something? A word, perhaps, a message of fifty-eight words. Or a shorter one of fifty-eight letters. Or a longer one, of fifty-eight lines.

Sherlock fairly dove for the box, handling the fragile books far more roughly than was probably wise, flipping open to fifty-eighth page on a hunch. "Ha!" he exclaimed, his sharp eyes instantly spotting the tiny pinprick under the letter "e" on the fourth line. A jolt of excitement like electricity surged through him, and he called over his shoulder, "John, I found—"

He stopped.

Looked up. Blinked.

Sighed.

Swiping away at the irritating sadness that threatened to fog his deductive powers, Sherlock set to with an only-slightly-dampened vigor. Each book, page fifty-eight, as he had suspected. Like most tricks, it was simple enough once you knew how it worked: the code itself was the key—however many books there were equaled what page to check for the vital letters. Fifteen minutes later, he had them all…though they hardly made sense.

A,A,A,A,B,C,C,D,E,E,E,E,E,E,F,G,G,H,H,I,I,I,I,I,I,I,L,L,L,M,N,N,N,N,N,N,O,O,O,O,O,O,P,R,R,R,R,R,S,S,T,T,T,T,T,T,T,U.

For lack of a better method, he mentally put them in alphabetical order, searching for any sort of pattern. He glared at the books in impotent frustration. Flipping a few of them open to their copyright pages, he tried to find some system to the letters by the age of the book that held them, but no luck. Without a doubt, the intended recipient of these books would have known in what order to read the letters, but Sherlock didn't know to whom they had been sent. The American, Jude Tyrone, didn't know either—he had only been a courier. Perhaps if he could be persuaded to reveal _where_ he was supposed to deliver the books, they might find some lead as to _who_ was supposed to pick them up.

Sherlock grunted to himself, and sent a quick text to Mycroft. While he waited for his brother's persuasive minions to convince Tyrone, he would work on the puzzle himself. With his intellect and determination, he felt certain there wasn't much that could stand in his way—it would just take a while.

_Most common word in the English language: 'the',_ he thought to himself, settling down in his chair across from the crate of ancient volumes and steepling his fingers under his chin. _Assuming it's English, assuming it's not encoded…That leaves me with six 't's, five 'e's and an 'h'…_


	4. Light and Shadow

**_Part III_**

_Sherlock: Light_

October 12th

_STOP AT RUN RIR…_ Sherlock scratched a jagged line through the letters on his yellow note pad, growled, and ripped the sheet from its moorings, flinging it in a crumpled ball across the living room. It bounced off the overflowing wastebasket and joined the other wads on the floor. He slipped from his chair to _thump_ onto the floor, staring over his knees into space.

He was so close – he knew it in his bones. But there was something missing, something that was probably so _obvious_ that it was nearly biting him in the nose, but he couldn't grasp it. Probably because it was something dreadfully _dull_, some key to the universe of ordinary people that his extraordinary intellect couldn't focus on long enough to understand.

Mycroft's men had been a little too thorough with the American Tyrone: instead of breaking his will, they had broken his wits. Now, he sat in his cell day by day, rocking on his bunk and gibbering nonsense. "It wasn't the hats," he'd explained to Sherlock, when the detective paid a visit. "Not the hats, never the hats. I swear, it had nothing to do with me—everything was baguettes. Baguettes and books and that stupid house all covered with vines…" And then he'd broken into a sobbing mess, and Sherlock had left, disgusted and frustrated. Since then, he had refused to utter another word—let alone anything that actually made sense or had to do with reality outside of his shattered nightmares.

Sherlock sighed, and leaned his head back against the seat of his chair, draping his hands over his knees. It was only in these last few months that he'd realized just how much he had come to rely on John's solid presence. After having someone to talk to while he was working a case, someone who could actually comprehend some of what he said, and sometimes offer input of his own…a skull simply didn't do the trick anymore.

Sherlock's phone chirped, and he glared at it. Mycroft was the only one brave enough to text him right now—in the last week, all others who had tried received lengthy, infuriated responses bitingly insulting their intelligence and parental units. He flicked open the message with an impatient finger. If John were here, he'd say—

_Suggestion: baguettes and an "old house IN PARIS all covered with vines" from a children's book. Paris, France? –MH_

PARIS. Scrambling, Sherlock grabbed up his scratch pad and ran his finger over the jumble of remaining letters. Already, he had decoded: _Everything is ready, bring the package._ And now, if he put the name of the city of light…

Like the last jigsaw puzzle snapping into place, Sherlock saw it. The corner of his lip twitched—the name of the city of light made him see the light…There was probably a lame joke in there somewhere.

_Everything is ready. Return to Paris. Bring the package. _

And then a warning: _Do not fail again._

He tapped the decoded message into his phone, sent it off to Mycroft, and sat back with a slow blink of satisfaction. Luminosity could still exist without the presence of an actual conductor…afterimages could be very bright indeed.

* * *

_John: Shadow_

October 12th

John watched Sherlock walk to the grocery, and then went for a run in the walled-in garden.

He watched Sherlock disappear into St. Bart's for three and a half hours, and did his therapy calisthenics while he waited.

He'd given up on the idea of stalker—he was more like an invisible shadow, flitting from security camera to security camera and keeping his guarding eye on his erstwhile flatmate. Frankly, he was getting bored. One can only watch so much television, after all. Mycroft told him that his suggestion had apparently broken through whatever mental block Sherlock had been struggling with, and that the detective would be on the first plane to Paris in the morning.

"Great," John replied, "But I'm guessing you don't have access to as many eyes in France."

Mycroft smiled that secretive, confident, v-shaped smile of his. "Oh, you'd be surprised," he said.

John rolled his eyes. "Save your James Bond act for someone else," he said wearily. "What's your plan?"

The elder Holmes, apparently unperturbed by John's rebuff, withdrew a small device from the pocket of his suit coat. "Sherlock will wear this," he said, holding it out for John to take. "And I've got a few other tricks up my sleeve, to use the colloquialism."

John wrapped his fingers around the tiny gadget. "An earbud?"

"Technically, a two-way communicator," Mycroft corrected, taking a seat behind one of the other desks.

"Two-way."

It wasn't a question, but Mycroft answered anyway, with a small smile that might have had just a dose of compassion mixed into its usual bland formula. "You'll be on the other line," he said. "_If_," and he stressed the word, "_If_ you can keep him from knowing who you are—you'll be Ross, you'll be careful not to say anything he might pick up on as sounding familiar, and you'll be talking through a voice-distortion device."

"Why?" John clicked the tiny communicator down on the desk. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I know you will do more than any other operative to keep Sherlock safe, and because…" Mycroft cleared his throat and twisted his head as though his tailored suit was chafing his neck. "You…deserve the chance."

Ah. John understood. "You think you owe me," he said flatly. "After everything you put me through—everything you put your own brother through—you feel like you owe me."

Mycroft didn't answer.

John sighed. "Well, I'm not going to complain," he said. "You do owe me."

The elder Holmes, again, didn't answer. But he inclined his head, ever so slightly, as if in agreement—an agreement he would never actually confess.

"Right," John said, standing. "Better go over the plan with me, then." He held himself to military attention. "First things first: What time does the plane leave?"

* * *

.

.

.

**A/N:** Hey, folks: sorry for the long delay here. Last week was midterms, and I REALLY didn't have time for much fun writing. So, if you'll notice, the dates on these entries are for last Friday - which means that, as of now, Sherlock has been in Paris for about a week. What has he been up to all this time? And is John not going MAD not being able to get out and about? Well... in the interest of keeping my readership (small though it may be) happy, I'm going to be very nice and post the next bit, _Devils and Angels_, within the next day or two, and hopefully be back on track by next weekend. Reviews are my happy-buttons, so drop me a line to say what you think!

Keep believing!

~Essie


	5. Devils and Angels

**A/N: **Here it is, as promised. Sorry for the delay. :) Enjoy!

* * *

_Sherlock: Devils_

October 21st

Sherlock Holmes was, above all else, a rational man.

He was not superstitious; he rejected mysticism; he was a wary skeptic of religion. But in the last year, he had come to believe in one thing that surmounted his disbelief in all things that he couldn't examine under a microscope: devils existed. In his career, he had seen the terrible things that mere humans could do to one another. But there was a difference between simple human cruelty and the outright evil—hot and hating and burning with dark fire—that he saw in the eyes of James Moriarty and his worldwide web of minions. If the suave head of that organization was the original fallen being, the devil himself, then the creature Sherlock faced today was a mere peon, a lesser devil, a simple messenger. But this lesser devil had information that could lead to the binding of Moriarty, the downfall of his evil web.

Sherlock had spent the last week slipping through the city of Paris like a silver fish in a dark and weedy river. He had frequented seedy cafés and upscale galleries, had spoken to students living in leaky flats and the owners of Paris' most expensive boutique. He had explored every used bookstore and library in the city, all in hopes of hearing one slipped word, one misstep in his quarry's trail that would lead him to the devils' lair.

And now, after a week of cold scents and subtle hints, he had it.

_Café de Feu_, he texted Mycroft. _Noon_. His quarry, a German ex patriot named Frederick Dyke who ran a very high-class smuggling ring in Paris, was in the habit of taking lunch at the small restaurant on Sundays. According to a waitress at the café, he always sat in the back corner, facing the window, at a table for two. When Sherlock had shamelessly exploited the charisma of his unusual eyes and cheekbones, she had added that Dyke always ordered the same meal: ratatouille, extra bread, and a dish of peach sherbet for dessert. Sherlock had left the café with all the information he wanted, and a slip of paper bearing the waitress' phone number.

He had dropped the paper into the first trash bin he passed.

_There's a package at the hotel desk,_ Mycroft wrote back within minutes. _Addressed to Sigurson. _

The matchbox-sized package, when Sherlock retrieved it and opened it in the privacy of his room, contained nothing more than a sleek little earbud. Slipping it into his ear, Sherlock said, "Hello?"

As clearly as if he stood in the next room, rather than two hundred miles away, he heard his brother's voice.

"Sherlock," the elder Holmes greeted him. "I take it the reception is clear?"

"A bit too clear," Sherlock muttered.

"Sorry?"

"I said it's clear."

"Mm." Mycroft's tone told Sherlock that his brother knew _exactly_ what Sherlock had said—and what he meant by it—but that he didn't care.

"What's the point of this, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked, falling down onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling. That crack there almost looked like a map of the London Underground, if he tilted his head just right…

"Backup," Mycroft answered. "You'll also have four agents following you, but at a discreet distance. The earpiece is so that we can hear—and, I might add, record—everything you hear."

"As well as everything I say."

"True."

Sherlock sighed and glanced at the clock. 10:32 AM in Paris – that made it only half-past nine in London. "You're up early on a Sunday."

Mycroft ignored him. "You'll need to wear this when you go to the Café de Feu at noon. For your safety and the safety of the mission."

He couldn't argue with that. Or, he could, but he saw Mycroft's point. Unfortunately.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"For now. I'll have an operative on this end by the time you head out."

"Make it someone rather less irritating than your usual agents."

"Oh, I will."

Sherlock popped the earbud out and tossed it onto the pillow. Folding his hands over his chest, he began to simulate the coming confrontation in his mind, calculating as many possible responses and counter-responses as he could think of. When hunting devils, one had to learn to think like they did.

And hope not to lose one's soul.

* * *

_John: Angels_

October 21st

John Watson was an honest man.

"I don't know if I can do this, Mycroft."

John hated to admit it, _loathed_ to show any kind of weakness in front of the stoic elder Holmes. But he was honestly afraid that he wouldn't be able to carry out this mission.

"You'll be fine," Mycroft said dismissively. He didn't even look up at John from where he stood leaning over a table and a large map of Paris. "It's only Sherlock."

The universe could probably count on one hand how many times those words had been uttered: _it's only Sherlock_. A vast understatement at the best of times, today saying: _it's only Sherlock_ was like saying _it's only a nuclear warhead_.

"You don't think he's notice? My…my voice patterns, my vocabulary?" John shook his head. "Someone else should do this, Mycroft."

Finally, Mycroft looked up at him, slowly standing up straight and meeting John's eyes. "If you really think so," he said, his voice steady, "I will give someone else the job. But only if you honestly do not believe yourself up to the task."

There it was, the doorway to escape that John had been looking for. Not to risk everything with a chance phrase or exclamation, not to have to continue lying to Sherlock. Up until now, the lie hadn't been his decision. It had been out of his hands. But if he had the chance to speak directly to his friend, and failed to tell him it was all a deception…then he would be just as guilty as Mycroft. But, now that the door was there, and open, and John was no longer beating on it with half-hearted fists…he found that he couldn't go through.

"No," he said, clearing his throat. "No…I'll do it."

"Very good." Mycroft's small smile said that he had known all along what John would do. He held out the earpiece and microphone, and John hooked them over his ear, glancing at the clock. Two minutes to show time.

The room was a small, controlled bustle of people, muttering stats and commands to each other, while the large television screens on the wall displayed various scenes of Paris streets, live feed from various cameras, some hacked into and some placed there by Mycroft's agents over the last few days. John's seat was in the back of the room. He wouldn't be involved in the overall success of the mission—he didn't know the details of the security teams in place around the Café de Feu or how exactly the capture of this German, this Frederick Dyke, would aid in the hunt against Moriarty. His one and only task was to keep his eyes on the main operative—Sherlock—at all times, and to keep the rest of the teams updated as to Sherlock's movements.

Mycroft's voice rang out over the room. "Initiation in five…four…three…two…"

John took a deep breath and spoke into the mic. "Hello?"

Instantly, over the earbud, he heard Sherlock's voice. "Who is this?"

John opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Hearing Sherlock's voice after more than half a year, the lie was more of a strain on his mental processes than he had anticipated.

"Hello?"

_"It's me, Sherlock, it's John—I'm alive, it was all a lie…_" The words were on the tip of John's tongue, but he swallowed them back with the discipline of a man who had learned to conserve words in the same way that he had learned to conserve medical supplies in a hostile territory.

"Sorry," he managed, keeping his voice clipped. "This is Ross. I'm your…guardian angel for the day."

"I hardly need a guardian angel." On the screen, John saw Sherlock round a street corner and caught the slight roll of his eyes.

"Eye in the sky with a panic button, then," he allowed with a smile. "Same difference."

"Mm." There was a rustling noise as Sherlock brushed back his hair to cover any traces of the earbud. It was really too small to see unless one looked closely, but there was no point in being foolhardy. "Is my brother there?"

"Yes…" John glanced across the room and met Mycroft's eye. "You want to speak to him?"

"Hardly."

"Ah." Nothing changed there, then. John looked up at the screen and saw Sherlock saunter casually into the doorway of the restaurant. "Alright, we've only got one eye in there," he warned, "Try to stay where we can see you."

"And you try not to talk too much, Ross," Sherlock growled. "Tell me what I need to know, and don't bother trying to think."

Nope. Nothing had changed at all. John cast his eye around the room at the efficiently-tense team. Every one of them was ready for the worst to happen at any moment.

Nothing had changed _yet_.

* * *

**A/N 2: **Right, so, I'd planned to post more this weekend, and show ya'll what happened inside the Cafe de Feu and all that...however, I'm going to a writing conference this weekend, leaving at an ungodly hour on Saturday and not getting back until late that night. SO. It may be a bit longer before I have time to finish what I've got going. Sorry. :(


	6. Regrets and Satisfaction

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay, folks. Enjoy the chapter(s) and do drop me a line if you have any suggestions as to adventures for the Baker Street Duo. :) I'm always looking for new ideas. Oh, also, the first part of this is a small nod in the direction of EmRose92's beautiful fic, "When We Almost Died". I loved the idea of John as a swimmer, and since he's in physical therapy right now...(shrugs) It worked well. If you haven't read her fic, you ought to head over there. It's lovely.

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

_John: Regrets_

October 26th

He should have seen the thugs. Or rather, he _had_ seen them—he simply hadn't _noticed _them.

John struck off the wall of the indoor pool, splashing a furious wave of water over the side. He had lost count of how many laps he had swum—more than his therapist would be happy about, he was sure. Probably more than his body would appreciate later. But he would deal with that when he had too. Right now, he was merely trying to vent his frustration in a way that wouldn't damage anything or anyone else.

The four thugs had been sitting two tables over, innocently eating entrées and apparently paying no mind to Sherlock and the slight, blonde man he sat down with.

"Mr. Dyke?"

As though the question were a signal—and they probably were—the four thugs had attacked, leaping from their seats and tackling Sherlock before he could stand.

The room around John exploded into action, orders barked into radios to the backup team waiting outside the restaurant. John had leapt to his feet with a shout when the thugs first attacked, and stood with clenched fists, cursing and helpless to aid his friend.

In the end, the backup team subdued the thugs, but not before Frederick Dyke escaped through the kitchen and Sherlock acquired a split lip, black eye, and two bruised ribs.

John kicked off the wall of the pool again, heedless, in his frustration, of the chlorine in his eyes and the growing pain in his still-healing leg.

He should have seen, he should have warned, he should have, should have, should have…

Finally, breathing hard, he rolled onto his back and floated, blinked water out of his eyes to stare at the glass ceiling of the room, where condensation fogged the panes and obscured the grey sky above.

What if Dyke's men had wanted to kill Sherlock, instead of trying to scare him off? If one of them had pulled a knife or a gun…It drove John crazy, being unable to do anything to actually protect his friends. He had always been a protective person—it was why he had become a doctor, and why he had joined the military. Being helpless like this was infuriating.

Water lapped at his chin, and John gave a sigh. Whatever Mycroft said, whatever he did, it didn't disguise the fact that John was a virtual prisoner here—wherever _here_ was. Mycroft himself had returned to London two days ago, and had informed John that he wouldn't be back for a week or two.

It gave John an idea.

He floated a while longer, thinking, then got out and limped to where he had left his towel. Roughly drying his hair, he decided: as soon as he was fit enough, he was getting out of this place. He had a job to do.

* * *

_Sherlock: Satisfaction_

October 26th

Well. That little experiment—Sherlock gingerly probed his aching ribs—had proven one thing: they didn't know who he was yet. If they had, if Moriarty had known he was on the scent, they would have killed him right there in the café. He should have done a bit more investigating at the Café de Feu, should have realized that Dyke _owned_ the place, but it hadn't been an entirely wasted attempt.

Fact: Dyke was a wealthy man.

Fact: He made most of his money smuggling drugs and black-market antiques.

Fact: He now knew that someone was after him.

Fact: He didn't know why.

That was a point in Sherlock's favor. It was like poking a spider's web. The creature would twitch its lines, hoping to snare a prey, but if you paid close enough attention, you could tell by which ones it twitched the cords that were sticky and deadly and the ones that were unimportant. Dyke would doubtless set certain safety protocols into effect, and Sherlock would be able to spot the man's most important assets—and thus, those most likely to be connected to Moriarty—by what he did. Already, several things had happened:

First, the waitress had gone missing. That was slightly troubling, and Sherlock had given Mycroft her phone number—which he had, as a matter of course, memorized before trashing—in hopes that his brother might be able to track her. If she had gone missing on her own, well and good. But it was just possible that Dyke had done something with her, in which case she might be more valuable than Sherlock had previously assessed.

Second, a pawnshop across town had closed down. Sherlock's make-shift network of street people, which he had cultivated since his first day in Paris, had informed him that Dyke owned the shop. He doubtless used it as one of his main fronts for selling smuggled goods, but why only that shop had closed was an avenue for investigation.

Which Sherlock planned to start as soon as he could see out of his left eye. That had been the first fistfight he had experienced since John's death, and six months of brain-work only had left his reflexes slow. He missed being able to rely on another to cover his back in a fight, though he hadn't realized just how much he had come to rely on that support.

Sherlock wrenched his mind from that room and slammed the door shut, mentally turning a heavy key in the lock. Thoughts of what _used_ to be were of no use to him now.

He lay back on the couch in his hotel suite and folded his hands under his chin. Yes, though he might have wished for a different outcome at the Café de Feu, events as they were could very well yield high results, if he played his cards right.

First, to find Dyke's headquarters…


	7. Cloak and Dagger

**A/N:** Ok, so this is half-way a day early (Sherlock's bit is dated the 3rd) but I've got homecoming and all that entails this weekend, and didn't think I'd have time to post otherwise. Also, this month is November, also known to a significant portion of the world as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Which means that I'm attempting to write a 50,000-word original story in 30 days, which means I may have very little time for fanfictioneering. So...apologies for delays in advance. :) Enjoy!

* * *

_John: Cloak_

November 2nd

He was in Sweden.

John had developed insomnia over the last week, but refused to take the sedatives he was offered, saying that he didn't want to add another medication on top of the ones he was already taking for his leg and other injuries. Instead, he swam, supposedly to naturally tire his body.

Actually, that glass ceiling had given him an idea.

He played with the temperature in the pool room until the condensation cleared from the windows, and spent several hours floating in the water staring up at the stars and calculating their patterns. He'd had to do this four nights in a row, checking and double-checking himself against a book of nautical navigation charts from Mycroft's library during the day, but it had paid off in the end. He knew, within a few hundred miles, where he was. Now it was only a matter of regaining his strength, gathering as much information and supplies as he could in a covert manner, and discovering the holes in the mansion's security. There had to be some—if there weren't, he'd create one. He had to get out of this place. Mycroft would never let him leave until Moriarty had been stopped for good, but Mycroft underestimated both John and Sherlock. If he could only get back to his friend, John was certain that the criminal mastermind would be crushed in no time at all.

Besides, if he didn't do _something_, he was going to go crazy.

* * *

_Sherlock: Dagger_

November 3d

"Let me pass, _dummkopf_," Dyke snarled, drawing a handgun from his coat and menacing Sherlock with it.

The lanky detective leaned with casual nonchalance against the building's front door. The warehouse was dark, all its windows long-since boarded over. The only light was the reddish glow of the exit light above Sherlock's head. "First, hand over the bag," he said.

"I will shoot you," the smuggler threatened, one finger curling over the trigger.

"I highly doubt it." Not only was Dyke a consummate coward, but Sherlock could see by the weight of the gun that it wasn't even loaded. "The bag. Please."

The handgun shook in the criminal's hand. "My boss, he will kill you," he tried again, but the antagonism was fading from his voice.

"Considering your boss, that's not really a surprise," Sherlock held out his hand. "The bag."

Dyke stared at him for a second, then whirled around and ran back into the warehouse. Sherlock sighed and pressed a finger to his ear. "Ross, send in the backup. He's heading out the back. Make sure they get the bag."

"Right, on it."

Sherlock heard the sounds of a scuffle from the other end of the building, and walked with an unhurried pace to where two French agents had Dyke pinned to the floor.

"_Voila_, _Monsieur Holmes_," one of the men said, holding up the small pouch Dyke had been trying to escape with.

"_Merci,_" Sherlock said, taking the bag. With a soft _mmm_ of satisfaction, he withdrew the bag's contents. Four jeweled rings, a vial of some pale liquid, and a one-way ticket to Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.

"Ross," Sherlock said into his earpiece.

"Yes?"

"Ask Mycroft if he knows anything about Chicago."

There was silence on the other line for a moment, and then Sherlock heard a click.

"He wants to know if you prefer a hotel suite or a rented flat," Ross said. Sherlock pushed away the slight irritation the man's mechanically-altered voice always provoked in him.

"I'll take the suite," he said, turning on his heel and leaving the French authorities to deal with Dyke. He glanced down at the ticket in his hand and wrinkled his nose. "It looks like my flight leaves in half an hour. Flight 81, I'll be riding coach, seat 14F."

"Only the best for Moriarty's crew."

Sherlock froze with one hand on the doorknob and one still holding up the plane ticket to see it in the dim light. He closed his eyes for a long second. For a moment, Ross had almost sounded like John—something in the inflection of his voice, or the irony of what he said.

"Thank you, Ross" he said, opening his eyes and the door at the same time. "That will be all."


	8. Slow and Steady

**A/N**: Hey all, sorry for the month-long hiatus. Good news, though. I succeeded in finishing my 50,000 word novel for NaNoWriMo (and it is, unfortunately, the WORST thing I have ever written) and can now devote all of my fun-writing hours to fanfics. As apology for the wait and a thank you for your patience, I should be posting twice this week. Once today, (though the date for the entries comes from last weekend) and then (hopefully) the next bit before Saturday. Thanks for reading!

~Essie

* * *

_Sherlock: Slow_

December 1st, 8:32 PM

Four weeks.

Four weeks he had been in this…this…he wasn't sure there was a polite way to express his contempt for Chicago. Normally, he enjoyed a bit of American flavor—they didn't tend to take things quite as seriously on this side of the pond, and were more willing to accept his eccentricities with aplomb. But he had disliked the dirty noise of Chicago the moment he stepped off the plane into O'Hare International Airport, and four weeks of absolutely nothing had cemented his distaste.

His vocabulary was permanently defiled, too. He had affected an American accent in his investigations here, and the twang of it was beginning to grate on his nerves. This whole American stunt—he shook himself mentally and corrected his grammar—this whole _job _was going to drive him insane.

"Nothing," he muttered. "Absolutely nothing to go on in this entire blight of a city." Blight. That was an excellent word.

He sat at the counter of his hotel suite, peering down the eyepiece of a microscope at the highly-magnified image of a pale amber droplet. Tapping his fingers on the countertop, he muttered chemical formulas to himself. The liquid came from the vial he took from Dyke, but he had yet to figure out the purpose of it. It seemed to be merely a distillation of honey and water, but when he applied a diluted dropperful to one of the suite's potted palms, the plant had withered and died within six hours. Obviously there was some kind of poison in the mix, but it wasn't one of the more common ones he was familiar with, and without anymore sophisticated equipment he couldn't make the tests he needed. He had considered gaining entrance to one of the area hospitals, but one visit was enough to convince him that, unless he found the American equivalent of Molly Hooper, that plan was a bust. And he had a sneaking suspicion that the American equivalents of Detective Inspector Lestrade would not be quite as…forgiving.

"Come on, come on," he murmured, "What are you?" Sitting back with a sigh, he steepled his hands in front of his chin and pursed his lips.

A beeping sound came from the pocket of his windbreaker, which hung draped over the back of the couch. Text message. Probably Mycroft. He debated getting up to answer it, but decided it wasn't worth the effort at the moment.

Nothing. In four weeks, nothing. He'd followed every lead—his best being the four rings from Dyke's bag. Each was set with different primary-colored jewels: a ruby, an emerald, a topaz and a sapphire. They were clever little settings—the biggest jewels popped out on concealed hinges, revealing tiny hollows behind. If the liquid _was_ poison, it was a natural line of reasoning to assume that the rings were to be delivery systems of some kind. But for whom? He'd systematically checked every pawn shop in the city, found out what collectors lived in the area and paid them surreptitious visits, and even done a thorough Internet search to see if the rings had been listed online anywhere. No luck.

His second lead, the liquid, was just as much a dead end. Rings with sly chambers to secrete deadly poison…it sounded like one of those historical mysteries John used to pick up from the library. Palace intrigue, conspiracies in the royal family—

Sherlock sat upright. Family. Conspiracies in the family. He was in Chicago, of all places. Was it possible that Moriarty had ties in the American crime syndicates? It certainly wouldn't be much of a surprise, and—now that Sherlock thought about it—it was ridiculous that it hadn't occurred to him before.

He got up and retrieved the phone from his pocket, thumbing open the newest text.

_call me when u get this dont tell mycroft -Ross_

Sherlock frowned at the message—both at the content and the atrocious way it was written. No capitalization, no punctuation, and—honestly, how difficult is it to add two more letters to the word "you"? He'd managed to train John in correct texting, but the rest of the world still staggered along in ignorant idiocy, content with their abbreviated, butchered language.

He was tempted not to reply, after a message like that, and had moved his finger over the "delete" icon when the phone chirped again with a new message.

_seriously i need ur help_

That did it. He'd call Ross back, if only to inform the man that he was a world-class waste of oxygen.

* * *

_John: Steady_

December 2nd, 2:32 AM

Half past two in the morning.

John Watson slipped down the hall, carrying his boots in one hand, his coat pockets bulging with granola bars he'd pilfered from the kitchen. His sock feet made little noise as he padded along the wooden floors, but he crept carefully, every sense on high alert. In the dark, the expensive paneling and moldings on the walls were hidden in shadow, and the luxurious manor looked more like what it really was: a prison.

Mycroft Holmes meant well, John knew. The government man was trying to protect his brother in the only way he knew how—but he was underestimating John and the former soldier's ability to take care of himself. Of course, John didn't really mind being underestimated. He'd gotten used to it over the years: Dr. John Watson, the mild-mannered, dry-humored bloke who smiled at kids and old ladies and kept his thoughts to himself. He'd learned to use that perception to his advantage.

Like now. Convenient underestimation or no, John wasn't taking any more of guff from Mycroft or his minions. He understood the dangers of letting Sherlock know he was alive, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be a whole heck of a lot more helpful out there in the real world, keeping his best friend safe from the shadows rather than from behind a computer screen a few thousand miles away, unable to pass on information that Sherlock _should_ know.

He was getting out of this place.

The front door was never guarded—John's exploration of the security systems of the manor had pleasantly surprised him: it was apparently not meant to keep people in, but only to keep them hidden. John turned the door's handle with a soft _snick_ and pushed open the door. Frigid evening air washed over him, and he shivered. He'd need to get to the nearest town—about two miles through wooded, frozen wilderness—as quickly as possible. The thermometer in the garden showed temps at about negative-18 Celsius, and though his coat was warm, it would be a close shave. If he got lost, he could freeze to death before anyone even knew he was missing. Digging his hands deep into his pockets, John started jogging, down the short driveway and toward the gravel path that led down the mountain.

He'd nicked a mobile phone from one of the agents—an absentminded young woman who complained for the next three days that she must have lost it somewhere in the house—and so far it hadn't been disconnected. Once he'd gotten out of earshot of the manor, he ducked into the shelter of the evergreen trees and checked the mobile for a signal.

Three bars. Mycroft really did buy the best.

Tapping out a quick text to Sherlock's number with his chilled fingers, John slipped the phone back into his pocket and continued down the mountainside, keeping just off the "road." In his left pocket, he fingered the edge of a sheet of paper, scribbled with surreptitiously-taken notes. Those notes were his reason for leaving now, before anything else happened. Mycroft may have meant well, but keeping vital information from Sherlock was _always_ a mistake.

_January Phelps_. John saw, in his mind's eye, the note in the manila folder in Mycroft's desk. He hadn't gone there looking for information about Sherlock's current lead—he had actually been looking for a map of the area.

_January Phelps. Chicago._

John had, by the dim light of a digital clock, copied out the rest of the information, furious at what Mycroft hadn't told him. The government man _knew_ why Sherlock was in Chicago—_knew_ what Sherlock was looking for and where to find it, and he hadn't told his brother. That was the final straw.

John stopped for a bit of a breather, listening for any sounds of pursuit and hearing nothing. He pulled out the cell phone and checked for a reply to his text. Nothing. He grimaced, and tried again. He'd keep texting until he got a reply. Persistence always won the day.

Then, slipping the device back into his pocket, he took a deep breath and continued on. He needed to get as far away as possible before morning. One foot after the other, he fell into an automatic stride, eating away at the distance between him and freedom one step at a time.


	9. Smoke and Fire

__**A/N: **So, as many of you have probably seen, filming for Season Three has been delayed until March because Sherlock is busy guarding a golden hoard and trying to take over the galaxy, and John decided to run off on a quest with a strange group of dwarves. :) Anyway, because of that, OUR reunion scene will be a bit longer coming too, because I want to "mirror" the actual thing, not make something up. So...Enjoy as we go, and any suggestions for adventures for our duo are welcome. :)

* * *

_John: Smoke_

December 2nd, 4:06 AM

The cell phone buzzed with an incoming call just as the lights of the village ahead appeared on the mountainside. John, his breath coming in frozen puffs in the darkness and his hands fumbling a bit in the cold, pulled the mobile phone from his pocket and thumbed the _answer_ icon.

"Hello," he said, pitching his voice low and affecting a bit of his grandmother's Irish brogue.

"If you didn't graduate primary school, you have no business using the English language. Your texts look like the illiterate products of a typing ape."

John nearly laughed aloud. Same old Sherlock. "Sorry, uh, sir," he said. "I needed to pass on something I found."

"Something you found." It wasn't a question. "Does it have to do with my case, or are you hoping to impress me with your lack of—"

"Sherlock." John cut off the sarcastic commentary. He didn't know how long this phone would go untraced, and he couldn't afford to have Mycroft's men find him before he even got the message to Sherlock, let alone before he got down the mountain. "Does the name January Phelps mean anything to you?"

Silence on the other end.

"Sherlock?"

The detective snapped, "I was thinking. No, I don't know a January Phelps."

John pushed away a new surge of irritation. Mycroft had his reasons, to be sure.

That didn't make him right.

"Your brother has been keeping information from you," he said. "January Phelps has ties to the Mob there in Chicago, and her name—along with three other names—were on a document they decrypted from Dyke's computer."

"What were the other three?"

John dug the bit of paper out of his pocket and squinted at it, using the bluish light from the phone to read. "Henry Jackson, Brad Tolliver, and Kim Delany," he read off. "But they've all got little red checks next to their names. January Phelps is the only one without."

"Does it say where to find her?"

John refolded the paper and shoved it back into his pocket. "The Mammoth Night Club, downtown Chicago," he said. "Mycroft didn't tell you any of this?"

"No." There was a deadly undertone in Sherlock's voice that made John glad—not for the first time—that he had never had the full force of the detective's anger aimed at him. Then again, if Sherlock found out about this whole charade, that John hadn't died after all…Well. They could cross that bridge when they came to it.

"Listen," John said. "I'm, ah…I've gone off the grid, so to speak." He cleared his throat. "I've got to ditch this phone. I'll find another way to contact you once I have more information."

"How could you get more information if you've gone off the grid?" Sherlock sounded dismissive. "Don't bother."

"Sherlock, I can help—"

"I don't need help."

And with a click, the connection died. John cursed, and stared at the phone in his hand.

He needed to get to Chicago.

A wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. _Operation Guardian Angel is go_, he thought. Popping open the back cover of the phone, John flicked out the battery and dropped the mobile at the foot of a large pine tree, kicking a pile of needles over the now-dead device. Then he turned back down the mountainside and continued on his way, leaving no trace for Mycroft's minions to follow as he melted into the darkness like a wraith of smoke.

* * *

_Sherlock: Fire_

December 2nd

_Mycroft still treats me as if I were a child_. As if he couldn't handle anything the older man didn't _think_ he could handle. Sherlock glanced, brooding, at the sheet of note paper, on which he had written the names Ross had given him, along with the words "Mammoth Night Club." He'd passed the place once or twice in his last month of investigating. It was a seedy-looking—but apparently successful—club on the other end of town. Now, as he walked up to the door of the neon-lit nightclub, he stuffed the paper back into his pocket and marched through the swinging doors with as much grandeur as he could muster, projecting a message of "I do not frequent places like this but am here on very important business." At least, that was what he hoped he was projecting.

It was only early afternoon, but already the club was doing pretty steady business. The low lighting revealed a dance floor filled with a dozen or so patrons who appeared to be attempting to dance—or, at least, writhe and jump to a vague rhythm—and more patrons sat scattered about at small tables and booths. Sherlock walked up to the bar, and a waitress in a tight-fitting shirt and a short denim skirt sidled up, smacked her gum, and asked, "What can I getcha, honey?"

Sherlock stared imperiously down at her. "January Phelps," he said, allowing his voice to slide back into his native accent. "Your boss, I presume?"

The girl wrinkled her nose. "Jan!" she shouted back over her shoulder, pitching her voice to carry over the beat of the music that thumped from the dance floor. "It's for you."

A door at the end of the bar opened and a tall, chestnut-haired woman with her makeup half-applied and a eyeliner pencil in her hand peered out. "Who?"

"I have a message from a Mr. Dyke," Sherlock said.

The color drained from January Phelps' face. "Listen," she said, jabbing the eye pencil in Sherlock's direction, "I _paid_ that two-bit German, no matter what he says."

"I don't doubt it." Sherlock gestured toward the door. "May I?"

January cast a worried look at the waitress, and hesitated for a long moment. She took in Sherlock's tall form, his intent face, and his apparent lack of a weapon.

"Sure," she said finally. "Come on back."

Sherlock walked around the end of the bar and through the door, entering a well-lit room lined with mirrors and lockers. January Phelps stood with her hand in her purse, her back to a door that led—Sherlock presumed—to the back alley. He clasped his hands behind his back.

"Please put away that gun," he said, looking pointedly at the purse. "I'm not here on behalf of Dyke or any of his men."

"And just how am I supposed to believe that?" she demanded, but her hand crept back out of the purse. Sherlock shrugged.

"I am acting purely on my own," he said. "Tracking down a lead."

"What, are you a detective or something like that?"

"Or something like that." Sherlock slipped a hand into his pocket and—before January could grab her gun again—withdrew the four rings and the little vial of amber liquid he had taken from Dyke. "Do these mean anything to you?"

January sank onto a stool in front of one of the mirrors. "Not the bling," she said in a wary voice. "But I've heard rumors about the stuff in that bottle. Where did you get it?"

"Frederick Dyke was arrested, and these were taken from him. A list of names was also confiscated, which included yours and that of your establishment."

January shrugged. "And probably Jackson's, Tolliver's and Kim's too, right?"

"Yes. Though theirs had red checks beside them, and yours—"

"Didn't." She nodded. "Because I'm still breathing."

"What is your connection with Frederick Dyke?"

With a bitter smile, January Phelps spun around on the stool and popped open a locker on the bottom row. Withdrawing a small box from within, she held it out for Sherlock's inspection.

"Methamphetamine," he muttered, instantly recognizing the small bags filled with the drug.

"Don't judge me—I don't sell anymore." Phelps replaced the box and slammed the locker shut. "I wasn't really connected with Dyke, understand," she continued "He was just a messenger. Tolliver and Kim cooked the stuff, and Jackson and I sold it to dealers here in Chicago."

"Dealers with ties to the crime syndicates?"

She nodded. "You know a lot, Mister…"

"Collins," he lied. "James Collins."

"Jackson got arrested three weeks ago. _Possession with intent to sell_." She rattled off the words as if they had no meaning anymore. "Tolliver and Kim got married, got religion, and got out. Someone was probably afraid they'd turn state's evidence, so…" she shrugged. "I told the bosses I wasn't selling anymore about two months back. I'm not sure why I'm still around."

Sherlock thought aloud. "The original plan was to poison all of you, probably," he said. "Possibly at some sort of high-end social event."

She groaned and rubbed her forehead. "Christmas ball—supposedly a charity, sponsored by…someone high up. No names. We all got invitations—I was still planning to go."

Sherlock opened his mouth to ask another question, and stopped. He sniffed. "What is that smell?"

January stood, alarm blooming on her face. "Smoke?"

The waitress burst through the door, just as an alarm began to blare.

"Fire!"


	10. Forgive and Forget

_John: Forgive_

_John: Forgive_

December 9th

John tapped on the door of the small country cottage, holding his breath. The little house was far enough from the lights of town that he felt relatively safe, and he had checked the area thoroughly for any security cameras—private or otherwise. All seemed secure…But still, he held his breath, every sense of full alert.

There was no answer from within the house.

He knocked again—a bit louder this time.

Something moved inside, and John stepped to the side of the door, keeping his face in the shadows.

"Hullo?"

The door cracked open just the smallest bit, restrained by a chain on the inside. John breathed a sigh of relief and moved into the dim light cast by a bare bulb over the lintel.

"Cam," he said, keeping his voice low. "It's John—John Watson."

"John? What the—"

There was a rattling sound as the chain was unlatched, and the door was pulled all the way open. Cameron Jackson's sleepy face gaped at John. "You look awful."

"It's a long story. Can I come in?"

"Of course, of course, please." Cam motioned him in and closed the door behind them. "Can I get you some tea?"

_Tea_. It sounded like the most beautiful thing on the planet. "Please," John said, "That would be fantastic."

Ten minutes later, the two men sat at Cam's kitchen table, two steaming mugs of Earl Grey in their hands. John sipped and gave a sigh of satisfaction.

"I haven't had a good cup of tea in a week," he confessed.

"I sense a story there." Cam shrugged and took a swig of his own tea, heedless of the heat. "Of course, that may be mostly from the fact that you're sitting in my kitchen at three in the morning, looking like you haven't showered in days. You're not…" he gestured helplessly. "You're not living on the streets, are you? I mean, I know things can be tough for vets coming home, but I thought you—"

"I'm not on the streets," John interrupted, trying to put the man at ease. "I'm on the run."

Cam's eyes widened. "From what?"

"It's rather a long story…"

"Well, I'm up now." Cam sat back with his tea. "Start talking."

So John told him. Well, told him most of it. He didn't explain all the reasons or the backstory, only that Sherlock thought him dead and that certain governmental agencies had been keeping him in a safe house while he recovered.

"But I'm recovered now, and Sherlock needs my help," he finished. It sounded like a bad Bond novel, he was sure, but Cam had heard and seen crazier things—they both had.

Cam said nothing for a long time, standing to refill their mugs with hot tea, and looking thoughtfully out the window, where the sky was beginning to show the first grey touches of pre-dawn.

"It's been a long time since Ghazni," he finally said, turning back to John.

"Not long enough."

"Never long enough," Cam agreed. "Still, I think it's time to let bygones be bygones."

"Then you'll help me?"

"We'll all help you."

John sat back and let out a sigh of relief that felt as if it had been building for weeks. "Thank you," he said. "I'll try to earn it."

Cam smiled, and shook his head. "You never had to leave, you know," he said. "If you had only explained to the boys—"

John smiled thinly and looked down. "Bygones, Cam."

His fellow soldier shrugged. "Fine then. Why don't you go take a shower while I call up the lads?"

John stood. "That," he said, "Sounds like a plan."

Or at least the beginnings of one.

* * *

_Sherlock: Forget_

December 9th

"Thanks for your help, Mr. Collins," January said, her voice tinny over the phone. "But I think my best bet is to just disappear for now."

Sherlock didn't pursue the matter. If the woman wanted to disregard Mycroft's help building a new identity, it was her funeral. He had gotten everything he needed from her. Glancing down at the sheet of paper on his desk, he replied, "Very well. You have my number."

She said goodbye, and he hung up, his mind already chasing down the possible lead she had given him. It wasn't much, only the name of her erstwhile boss: Pete Kearns, investment magnate with an underground empire as a drug lord. No real ties to the old-fashioned crime families, but bad news in his own way. Mycroft was aware of him, apparently, though he didn't say how. Sherlock imagined that the U.S. criminal investigation agencies would be getting a few interesting calls over the next few days. Not his problem.

January had also given him the date, place, and her ticket to this Christmas ball where she was to have met her death via the amber-colored vial in Sherlock's pocket. In the week since her nightclub had—mysteriously—burned to the ground, she had been able to tell him as much as he would need to know to infiltrate this high-class gathering and perhaps learn something about Kearns. Sherlock suspected—no, he was certain—that Kearns was a part of Moriarty's web. And it was high time he got back on course. Enough of this chasing down skinny leads on small-time players for Mycroft. Sherlock was no longer satisfied with small game—he wanted to go after the trophy buck.

Heaven help him—that analogy right there proved he'd been in the states too long. The Midwestern obsession with deer hunting was seeping into his subconscious.

Sherlock stared at the striped wall of his opulent suite. He would go to this ball—but then he was done doing Mycroft's bidding. The man had hardly left his office in who-knows-how-many years; he couldn't possibly know the best way to go about catching Moriarty. Mycroft would have Sherlock running errands like a paper boy for years at this rate.

He picked up his phone and dialed Mycroft. He'd rather text, but it was so much easier to lie in a text message. He needed to hear his brother's voice.

"Sherlock. What is it?" Mycroft sounded weary. Then again, Mycroft had two basic modes: weary and smug. Sherlock far preferred weary.

"One week from today is Kearn's Christmas ball," he answered.

"I'm aware of the date. Do I need to send you a pocket planner?"

Sherlock ignored the jab. Not the day to get into a pointless sparring match, much as he might enjoy them on a normal basis. "Why did you not tell me of January Phelps or her late compatriots?"

"I didn't believe them relevant."

"Pity, I did." Sherlock ran his finger over the sheet of paper in front of him.

"Who gave you that information anyway?"

"Oh, my little guardian angel," Sherlock said with a roll of his eyes. "Didn't he tell you?"

There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. Then Mycroft came back. "I believe you may have spoken to…Ross more recently than I."

Sherlock noted the hesitation before Ross. Then it wasn't the man's real name, Mycroft _knew_ the man's real name, and he didn't want Sherlock to know he knew. He filed it away.

"Has he left your little garden party, then?"

"He disappeared a little more than a week ago," Mycroft admitted. "He's had some experience in the field, as it were, and we're finding it a bit difficult to locate him."

So Mycroft and his minions had lost a fish. Good for Ross.

"Sherlock, if he contacts you, tell us immediately. The man was in protective custody for a reason."

"Mm." _No promises, brother._ "He hasn't had the worst idea in the world."

"What do you mean?"

"Meaning, I'm done with your shepherding of the situation, Mycroft."

"Stop being clever, Sherlock. What are you on about?"

"After the little function of Kearn's, I'm going after Moriarty. No more beating around the bush."

There was a short silence on the other end, and Sherlock pictured his brother sitting down at one of his many expensive desks, a thin frown stretching his face.

"Are you sure that's wise, Sherlock?"

"I don't care whether it's wise or not. But I am through taking orders. This game is getting too slow."

"This isn't a game, Sherlock. Or have you forgotten?"

Sherlock closed his eyes.

_""This is…This is my note, Sherlock. Sort of."_

_Panic begins to tinge with understanding. "Note—what do you mean, note?"_

_"It's what people do—normal people." Tired amusement. They've had that conversation so many times—what normal people do. "They…they leave a note."_

_No, no, no, no, no…_

_"Goodbye, Sherlock."_

_BOOM. A flash of light, a detonation of thunder and flame…_

"I have not forgotten."

Mycroft had to know by the tone of Sherlock's voice—even as deliberately oblivious as the government man sometimes was—that he had gone too far this time.

"Very well, Sherlock. But keep me informed."

Sherlock hung up, staring blankly at his hands: long and white and lying still on the table.

He hadn't forgotten.

* * *

**A/N:**Sorry for the long wait, folks. I've been home on Christmas hols and haven't had access to the 'net. I _have_, however, had time to write. So, while I'm a bit backlogged, expect to see this little fic catching up fairly soon. Plus, I finally have a bit of a story to work toward, something that I have been sadly lacking thus far.

Reviews are my fountains of happy dancing!

~Essie


	11. Suits and Ties

**A/N:** _I took the liberty of adding in yet another OC in this chapter: John's Scottish grandmother. I have a short fic in progress that's John telling his Gran about his new flatmate Sherlock Holmes, but it's In Progress. Hopefully, I will post it one day soon. But for now...Know that I'm making up heap big backstory for John. This is an AU, so I feel it's ok. (Winces) Hopefully._

_Anyway, enjoy._

_~Essie_

.-.

* * *

_Sherlock: Suits_

December 16th

The Kearns Investment Corporation Annual Christmas Gala was a sparkling affair held in Pete Kearns' personal penthouse, with dazzling gowns, black tuxedos, soft music, and flute glasses of champagne served by waiters in white tails. Very posh. Just the sort of occasion that used to keep John gritting his teeth all evening, as he tried to keep Sherlock's manners (or lack thereof) under control. Tonight, though, Sherlock was on his best behavior. He needed to get to Kearns, needed to find out what the man knew about Moriarty and his web.

It didn't take long—and it wasn't exactly as Sherlock had planned, either.

"Please come with me, sir." One of the waiters took Sherlock's elbow in an easy but insistent manner.

"Come where?" Sherlock deliberately set his champagne down on one of the small standing tables that dotted the large, elegant room.

The man's eyes were dark and expressionless. "Please do not make a scene, sir."

"Hardly." Sherlock tugged his elbow free, but followed the waiter—or whatever he really was—out one of the smaller side doors that led into the private areas of Kearns' opulent living quarters.

The man took him down a narrow corridor illuminated by elegantly recessed lights and lined with artwork of minor fame. Sherlock was not an expert, but he knew a good bit about art—as it applied to crime and art theft anyway—and recognized several of the pieces as stolen works. None of them were particularly valuable, but almost every single one had disappeared within the last twelve years.

"A nice collection," Sherlock commented.

The waiter didn't reply. He led Sherlock to a door at the end of the hall, opened it ceremoniously, and gestured the lanky detective through. Wary and alert, Sherlock stepped inside.

The room was small—a study of some kind—and there were no lights other than the bluish glow that shone from a computer screen on a desk in the center of the room. The computer was connected to some sort of video-calling network, and displayed onscreen was the smug face of one Jim Moriarty.

Sherlock felt his heart rate take off like a rocket from its launch pad, but deliberately kept his face emotionless. He stepped closer to the monitor, and a light flipped on above his head, illuminating his face.

Moriarty's expression lit up. "Oh, _there_ you are, Sherlock," he exclaimed, as if he were the host of a gathering and Sherlock was late in arriving. "I half thought you wouldn't come."

"And miss out on the hors d'oeuvres?" Sherlock slipped his hands laconically into his suit pockets.

Moriarty gave a small laugh. "Oh, I've missed this," he admitted, leaning back from the webcam that distorted his face. "Leaving January alive was a good idea after all."

Sherlock's eyes scanned the room behind the criminal mastermind, but there was little to deduce. It was a hotel room, to be sure, but it could have been any hotel room almost anywhere in the world. Flowered bedspread, cheap floral painting on the wall above the headboard, manila-colored lampshade over a brass lamp that illuminated a small black alarm clock and a telephone.

Moriarty waved his hand over the room. "Oh, I'm in New York," he said. "But I won't be here long. I've got people to see, business to direct, governments to topple…" he grinned, and his shark-like black eyes glittered in the reflected light of the computer screen. "But that's not why we're here, Sherlock."

"It's not." Not a question—Sherlock knew that Moriarty had something up his sleeve.

"Hm." The suave villain on the other side of the screen tilted his head and considered Sherlock. "Something's…changed about you, Sherlock," he said. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You're dangerous. I like it."

Sherlock said nothing.

"Oh, do tell me this isn't about your _pet_," Moriarty continued, rolling his eyes. "_Really,_ Sherlock, I didn't know you had it in you."

"You killed him."

"No, you killed him." Suddenly, Moriarty was all business, every hint of a teasing tone in his voice gone—snuffed out like a candle. "If you hadn't insisted on trying to change the rules of the game with that Adler woman—"

"This is not a game!" The words—the same words Mycroft had said to him—came out with more force than Sherlock intended, and he took a steadying breath.

"It has always been a game, Sherlock Holmes. It will always be a game until one of us is …finished. And it is a game that you will continue to play—I know you." Moriarty shrugged. "I know you better than you know yourself and I can promise you one thing, one thing that would be true even if your entire world was to explode into a nuclear holocaust around you: you will continue to play."

"Why should I?"

The taunting smile was back. It was eerie how the man could turn his different personas on and off like that. "Because I have this." He held up a small, leather-bound book, like a pocket planner.

Sherlock frowned. "And what is that," he asked. "Your playbook on taking over the world?"

Moriarty laughed—an honest-to-goodness laugh, not an affected one. "Exactly! Because all consulting criminals write down our step-by-step plans. They teach us that in World Domination 101." He shook his head. "Honestly, you really don't recognize this?"

_Seven by twelve centimetres_, _brown leatherette binding, worn on the edges, obviously kept in a pocket and used often—coat pocket, not trousers. A man's book, a planner, something one would take notes in…oh_. Sherlock had seen that notebook a thousand times. _John's notebook._

"How did you get that?" Flat voice, no inflection. _How did he get John's notebook._

"Ah, now I've got the tiger's tail." Moriarty waved the little volume. "You should see the stuff in here, Sherlock. All sorts of notes and observations on your little cases, doodles—quite good, too—and quite a few pages filled up with some sort of gibberish that even I can't make out. Some kind of shorthand." He grinned, his white teeth shining like a predator's. "That's the juicy stuff, I'm sure."

"How," Sherlock repeated through clenched teeth, "Did you get that?"

"You'd think," Moriarty said, flipping through the small book and pretending to examine one of the pages, "That after that little incident with the DVD in your flat, you'd train your landlady to be a bit more careful about who she lets in."

_Mrs. Hudson…_

Moriarty might have been a mind reader. "Oh, don't worry." He snapped the book shut and laid it down on the desk in front of him. "The old lady's fine."

"What do you want?"

A look of pure concentration and certainty came across Moriarty's face, and he leaned close to the webcam, the small camera distorting his features. "I want you to keep playing," he said in a low, low voice. "I want you to come after me, to chase me from country to country and game to game, until you crack under the pressure—until you break into a shriveled, sniveling mess of the man you think you are—until you burn out into a hollow husk and there's nothing left of you but what you once were."

There was no more teasing in his tone, no more laughter in his eyes. For once—perhaps the only occasion in the entire time Sherlock had known him—Moriarty was telling the plain, unadulterated truth.

"And if I don't? If I don't want to 'keep playing'?"

Moriarty shrugged, and sat back. "Then I break this code and figure out exactly what it is John Watson thought was so important," he said.

"I highly doubt he wrote down any state secrets; anything that would help you." But they both knew that's not why Moriarty wanted the codes broken. The thought of that…_snake_ rifling through John's most private thoughts disgusted Sherlock. The murderer had no right to know _anything_ about John Watson.

"Let's make a bargain, you and I, Sherlock." Moriarty tapped the notebook. "I'll give you ten months. You play my game for ten months, and I will not even _peek_—not the tiniest bit—at old Johnny's little code. If you're still alive in ten months—or if you find me—" he added the last in the same tone one might say 'or if you fly to the moon,' "—then I'll give it to you. No charge."

"Why should I believe you?"

"I swear on my mother's grave."

"You probably killed your mother. If she's even dead."

Moriarty smiled a knowing smile. "That's for me to know and you to not bother your pretty head about. But it's a promise. And Jim Moriarty _always_ keeps his promises. I promised to burn you, didn't I?"

He hit a key on the computer, and Sherlock's screen went dark.

Sherlock tugged his suit straight and turned back to the door he had entered through. The waiter who had brought him there was nowhere to be seen, but a door down the hall was open, and the cold night air blew in from outside. It brushed Sherlock's face and chased away the cobwebs of Moriarty's mind games. Feeling more awake and alive and downright _angry _ than he had in months, Sherlock strode out the door and into the Chicago night.

He was back in the Moriarty's game.

._.

* * *

._.

_John: Ties_

December 16th

_Gran,_

John stared at the paper before him and tapped his nose with the pen in his hand. How do you tell your one living—and caring—relative that, sorry, I'm not dead after all, but I _am_ on the run from the British government and I can't come home?

He sighed, and just started writing.

_This isn't a hoax, I promise. I can't explain everything, but I couldn't contact you any sooner than this. It really is me—I'm not dead, and I'm sorry you had to think so. It wasn't my idea._

_I have to help a friend—he's chasing down the man who tried to kill me, and I can't come home. If you need anything, contact Cameron Jackson at this address. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone you heard from me. Especially anyone from the government. Don't even tell Harry. I just wanted you to know that it was a lie, and I'm fine—really. _

_I love you._

_~John_

"Do you really think this is the best idea?"

John looked up to see Cam standing in the doorway, looking pointedly at the letter.

John shook his head. "It's not fair to her," he said. "She has a right to know."

"Can she keep quiet about it?"

"She's…she's my only family. Other than Harry, that is, and Harry and I…we don't get on. We don't talk much. I'd be surprised if she even went to the funeral."

"But will she keep it a secret?"

"If I ask her too, she will." John's grandmother was a full-blooded Scotswoman and as stubborn as they come. He'd bet on her against Mycroft and all the power of the British government any day.

Cam held out his hand. "Give it here, then," he said resignedly. "I'll post it this afternoon."

"Have you heard from Mike yet?" Mike Waldron was the last of the Vipers to report in. Henry Green, Gordon Thomas, and the two American brothers, Kevin and Leroy Stone had all said yes, they'd help. John tucked the note to his grandmother into an envelope and licked it shut, handing it up to Cam.

Cam shook his head. "Got his answering machine again. He's an airline pilot now, though. He works odd hours. Plus he's in the U.S. It's what—four hours earlier there?"

"Six."

"Six, then."

"It's been a week," John said, standing. "He's not going to answer."

"He was the one hurt the most when you left, John," Cam reminded him. "He thought the Vipers were in it for the long haul. We all did."

"You know it wouldn't have lasted," John protested, "Even if I _hadn't_ left. Sooner or later, one of us would have been transferred out, or gone home, or, or…" he waved his hand. "It wasn't meant to last."

Cam shrugged. "We were the closest thing Mike had to a family, John."

Family. By blood or by bond, family ties were the strongest thing John had ever found. That was why the Vipers were reforming. That was why he had written to his grandmother.

And it was why he had to help Sherlock. Family was family—and family never gave up on family.

"I'll try calling Mike again," he said at last. "Maybe if he hears me on the answering machine…"

Cam shrugged. "Worth a shot, I guess," he said.

"It's always worth a shot."


	12. Comfort and Joy

_John: Comfort_

December 24th

"I'm flying to Berlin, so the place is yours for the week," Mike Waldron said, closing the refrigerator door. "There's plenty of pasta and soup in the pantry, and I just bought a gallon of milk."

John looked up from Mike's laptop, where he was doing some last-minute research before the other man left and any Internet activity in the "empty" apartment would be suspect. "Did you pay cash?"

"I'm not stupid," Mike said. "Of course I paid cash."

"Sorry, I just meant—"

"I know what you meant." Mike sighed. "Sorry, John. I'm just a little…" he shrugged. "The landlord won't look in unless you make a lot of noise or something."

John nodded. "Thanks, Mike."

Mike shook his head. "Yeah…no problem." He shut the door hard on the way out.

John wasn't sure what to do about the man. They had been good friends once, back in the Middle East, back when their little crew of like-minded service men, some British and some American, had been part of the Vipers. The Vipers were founded as a liaison group by progressive-minded commanding officers, and had been their way of keeping sane in the hot, dry, violence-ridden world they found themselves in. They played cards and swapped jokes and worked out together, and when one of the commanding officers discovered how well the band worked as a team, she'd sent them out on recon-cum-relief missions, taking clean water and medical supplies to the locals. John had relished the time to do what he loved—helping people—and the group had become close over the few months they had been deployed in the same area.

Then John been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to transfer out and become the medical officer in charge of a peacekeeping unit stationed in an area stricken by malaria. He'd accepted, but had been unsure of what to do about his place in the Vipers.

He had thought he made a good, practical decision, suggesting that they replace him with an up-and-coming fellow from the unit. But Mike and a few of the others protested, unwilling to let a new person into what had become, for them, a close-knit family. They wanted to keep John as part of the Vipers, long-distance. Cam and Gordon argued against it, saying John could do what he wanted—it wasn't as if they were official… In the end, it got too messy. John went to the officers in charge of the liaison group, handed in his Vipers badge, and left.

He hadn't looked back. The area where he had been transferred turned out to be more work than he had anticipated, and an unexpected outburst of violence in the area eventually led to a bullet in the shoulder and a one-way-ticket back to England.

Most of the boys had forgiven him easily, it seemed, but Mike…Mike was a hard case.

And right now, Mike was not his problem.

It had only taken John two days to find Sherlock, asking quiet questions and simply watching from park benches. Chicago was cold in December, but it hadn't snowed much more than a flurry in the week since John had arrived. Now, it was Christmas Eve, Sherlock hadn't stirred from his hotel room in days, and John was getting antsy. He was a patient man, but even his patience was no match for a sulking detective without a lead.

Which was why John was online. He had called in a favor from Kevin Stone, another former member of the Vipers and currently a cyber-security guru with a booming business in Oklahoma. Kevin had managed to track down a likely-looking bit of information: a "phantom" thief in Florence, Italy who had been stealing valuable works of art for months, eluding both electronic security systems and investigative personnel. There were a lot of criminals in the world, but something that smooth and professional stunk of Moriarty. At least, that's what John hoped.

He printed the page with Kevin's information from Mike's printer and shut down the devices. Then he slipped the sheet into a small, gaily-wrapped package and tied it shut.

_Sentiment_, he could hear Sherlock scoff. _Practicality, _he defended himself. He had yet to see Sherlock, but he knew for a fact that—brilliant as the man was—Sherlock Holmes _never_ remembered to pack his gloves on long trips. If he didn't have them on his hands or in his pockets when he walked out the door, chances were he didn't have them at all. And it was cold, and it was Christmas.

John slipped out of Mike's apartment without incident and walked the short distance to Sherlock's hotel. There was a young woman walking her dog outside the hotel, and with the assistance of a ten-dollar bill in her hand, and another one for the pocket of the bell boy, John convinced a her to help him deliver the small box. She seemed to think he was secretly delivering a gift to a girlfriend, and he let her think that, giving her the room number and not the name. He watched from a distance until she delivered both box and message to the bell boy, and then sauntered off—feeling better and more useful than he had in months. As he walked away, he whistled _Silver Bells_ and smiled at everyone he met.

* * *

_Sherlock: Joy_

December 24th

Sherlock was flipping through television channels, trying to find something that wasn't saccharinely sweet to take his mind off the boredom. Mycroft wasn't answering his calls—apparently, the elder Holmes had decided that if he couldn't dictate the help, he would be no help at all—and Sherlock had nothing to do. Moriarty had dropped no clues other than New York, and Sherlock knew that by the time he managed to get there, the man would be long gone and all possible clues with him. It was a waiting game—and he despised it. He was at Moriarty's mercy, and until the criminal mastermind deigned to drop him some sort of puzzle or clue, he had nothing to go on.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Who is it?" Sherlock growled, hitting the mute button and glaring at a green, furry cartoon character who glared right back at him.

"Room service," came the answer.

"I didn't order anything," he snapped.

"It's a package, sir."

A package? Sherlock bolted out of the chair and jerked the door open, meeting the bell boy's startled eyes. A brightly wrapped Christmas gift waited in the young man's hand, and Sherlock took it cautiously. _Too light for a bomb, no air holes for a snake or other vermin…_

"Sir?"

The boy was waiting for a tip. Sherlock merely quirked an eyebrow at him, and shut the door in his face. _Expensive haircut, new shoes, and contact lenses. He doesn't need a tip._

Alone again, Sherlock laid the small package on the table and carefully pulled the tie to open it, careful lest it be something unpleasant after all. Peeling back the layer of tissue paper, he uncovered the box's contents.

Gloves.

He frowned at the box. Gloves? What sort of coded message was that? Perhaps they belonged to a killer and he would find traces of the man's distinctive hand lotion inside, or they were actually leather from an endangered species slaughtered by a ring of poachers or…He looked at the gloves more closely, still not touching.

They were his favorite brand. That was odd. And odder still…With two fingers, Sherlock carefully pulled out a slip of paper that lay under the gloves. His ice-like eyes quickly took in the words printed on the paper—generic print, generic ink, generic paper, nothing to be deduced there—and his expression turned to one of surprise.

_Il Phantasma_, the Phantom, had stolen six valuable sculptures and four paintings from private collections in Florence—just in the last week! High tech security systems were apparently no barrier, the thief left no fingerprints, footprints, or DNA, and the police were at a loss. Sherlock felt his brain kick into gear, and he flicked the television off.

Five minutes later, he had ordered a one-way airline ticket to Italy and was throwing his clothes into a suitcase. A grim glint was in his eye, but there was a sort of hot, fierce joy in his heart as he deliberately pulled the leather gloves from their box and slipped his hands into them.

_Merry Christmas, Moriarty_.

* * *

**A/N:** Ta-da! The long-overdue Christmas installment, for your enjoyment: far less angsty than it would have been had I actually written in FOR Christmas. :D

Keep Believing,

~Essie


	13. Text and Subtext

_Sherlock: Text_

January 1st

The Phantom had eluded him for a seven days now, and Sherlock Holmes was _not_ happy. He had visited every crime scene, finagled access (with Mycroft's reluctant assistance) to the files on the thefts from the law enforcement agencies in charge of investigating, and even reexamined some of the evidence himself. _Nothing_.

He was sitting on a bench in one of Florence's city parks when his phone buzzed with an incoming text.

_any leads? –ross_

Impatient and testy, he tapped back, _I refuse to reply to your texts if you cannot use standardized punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. –SH_

He glared at the phone until it lit up with Ross's reply.

_My apologies_, it said. _Do you have any leads on Il Fantasma?-Ross_

Well, the man was somewhat educated after all. _No leads,_ Sherlock replied. _How do you know about this? –SH_

There was a long pause before the other man's reply finally came through. _I've been following you. –Ross_.

That was unexpected. _Why? –SH_

The pause was longer this time, and when the text finally came through, it was only two words.

_Guardian angel._

"Bah," Sherlock said aloud, startling off a flock of pigeons that had been fluttering around him. _I told you, I don't need a guardian angel,_ he started to type, but was interrupted by another text, this one longer.

_I know you don't need one. But you wouldn't even be in Italy without my help. Did you like the gloves? –Ross_

Sherlock was surprised, honestly surprised.

_That was you? –SH_

_Merry Christmas. –Ross_

_How did you know about Italy? –SH_

_Friend of mine. I have contacts that can help you. –Ross_

_Are you in Italy? –SH_

Sherlock wanted to meet this man, this stubborn-but-helpful mystery agent who somehow knew what kind of gloves he liked. Had Mycroft told him that? Did Mycroft even know? But Ross didn't reply for a long time. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and Sherlock began to wonder if his question had actually gone through, or if he should send it again.

Just as he started to thumb open the message, his phone buzzed.

_Meeting in person would be dangerous for us both,_ the message said. _Besides, you prefer to text. – Ross_

And just how did he know _that_? Mycroft and this Ross fellow must have had some pretty long chats. Sherlock wondered what else Ross knew, and if he really had slipped Mycroft's net. Perhaps he was just one of Mycroft's agents after all.

_Do YOU have any leads? –SH_

The reply was almost instantaneous.

_Casa della Lucertola. Tonight. –Ross_

* * *

_John: Subtext_

January 1st

_Are you in Italy? –SH_

John stared at his phone—a cheap, disposable mobile with prepaid minutes he picked up from a street vendor—and silently cursed Moriarty, Mycroft, and anyone with an IQ higher than 180. How simple it would be, to say, "Yes, I'm here in Italy. I'm in Florence, actually—meet me at the such-and-such café at two o'clock." He could tell Sherlock the whole sorry tale, explain everything, take whatever abuse the lanky detective wanted to heap upon him, deflect most of it Mycroft and Moriarty's way, and…and that would be it. Everything out in the open. Back the way it should be.

Right up until some international assassin put a bullet in both their brains or Moriarty blew up the London Underground. And it would be John's fault.

_Are you in Italy?_

Yes, he was in Italy. In fact, he was in a hotel right across from where Sherlock was staying—close enough that he had actually spotted the detective leaving the building that morning when he looked out his own window. So close…and yet so impossibly far from normal. It was the first time he had seen Sherlock with his own eyes since the day Moriarty tried to kill him—images on a computer screen didn't quite count. The doctor in John was concerned by how thin—even thinner than usual—the detective was; the army captain in him was concerned by the seeming lack of caution in Sherlock's routine; and the friend in him was both frustrated and relieved to see that Sherlock seemed to be the same man as ever. Except that now, he wasn't interested in the weird-and-wonderful crimes he used to delight in; now he was only interested in hunting down Moriarty.

That too, was John's fault. If he had had the nerve, when Moriarty was in that warehouse, to simply push the button that would send up the explosion, none of this might be happening. John probably would have survived thanks to Mycroft's improvised armor, Moriarty would be a sizzling corpse, and Sherlock would be banging on the door to Detective Inspector Lestrade's office at Scotland Yard, demanding to be heard.

_Are you in Italy?_

John pulled a grimace at the phone in his hand, and finally tapped out, _Meeting in person would be dangerous for us both._ Then he added, _Besides, you prefer to text. _

He sent the message before he could regret it. But regret it, he did. Mostly because he never should have said that about Sherlock preferring to text. He couldn't keep dropping little hints like that—first the gloves, now that comment…It was dangerous and stupid both.

But that wasn't the only reason he regretted that text. Sure, meeting would be dangerous, probably even deadly. That didn't mean that he couldn't wish for it anyway. The guilt of lying to Sherlock was eating away at him—Sherlock had trusted him. He was betraying that trust with every moment he didn't tell the detective the truth. If their positions had been reversed, he hoped that Sherlock wouldn't have kept him in the dark this long.

His phone buzzed.

_Do YOU have any leads?_ Sherlock asked.

"Yes, in fact, I do," John muttered to the phone. Kevin was a genius, and the Phantom not quite as careful as he ought to have been. All it took was one search on Google Maps on the wrong computer, and the Phantom had typed in his own doom.

_Casa della Lucertola. Tonight_, he typed. –_Ross_.


	14. Crime and Punishment

**A/N**: Sorry for the delay in posting, and sorry in advance for flooding your mailboxes, those of you who follow this story, over the next few days. Procrastination will kill me yet... but not until tomorrow.

~Essie

* * *

0.o

* * *

_Sherlock: Crime_

January 2nd

January in Florence was rather chilly. Still warmer than London, of course, but Sherlock was glad to be inside the Casa della Lucertola. The owners (a middle-aged man with a weak heart and a gambling addiction and his pretty young wife, who knew about both and was eagerly anticipating the inevitable conclusion) had been taken aback by Sherlock's announcement that their home was about to be plundered by a notorious art thief, and gladly gave him permission to wait in their spacious library to catch Il Fantasma. Sherlock, for once, refrained from pointing out how absurdly thick they were to allow a complete stranger free rein of their house. Had he been Il Fantasma, he wouldn't have even needed to break in.

Now, he sat enshrouded in darkness, slouched in a corner chair with his fingers steepled in front of his chin and his ice-like eyes glinting like a cat's, reflecting the dim glow of a nearly-dead fire, the only light in the room.

He didn't have to wait long.

Before the gold-etched grandfather clock by the door had chimed half-past eleven, there was a scritching sound from the window. Sherlock watched, marginally impressed, as the thief removed a small section of glass from the diamond-paned window, reached a deft hand inside, and flipped the latch. The window swung inward, and a slight, black-clad figure slipped in over the ledge.

Sherlock waited until the lithe thief had crossed the room, intent on a prominently-displayed statuette by a well-known artist. When he stood, he was between the thief and the only escape routes.

"Personally, I prefer oil paintings."

Sherlock's clear, low baritone shattered the dead silence of the room. The thief, inches away from the statuette, whirled around and made as if to lunge past Sherlock.

"Ah, ah, ah…" Sherlock drew a black pistol from his coat pocket and leveled it at the thief. "I rather don't think so."

The slight, black-masked figure hesitated, then slumped—defeated.

"What," Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow, "No gun?"

In one smooth motion, Il Fantasma pulled the mask away, revealing the livid face of a blonde-haired, teen girl. She let loose a string of Italian invectives that Sherlock, impressed, filed away for future use.

"No gun," he agreed. He motioned with his own—John's, actually—at the chair he had just vacated. "Please. Sit." He reached for the light switch and flicked it on, flooding the room with a yellow glow. The thief blinked, sank into the chair, and glared up at him with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes, taking in every detail of her appearance. "No…" he mused aloud, a note of disappointment and disgust finding its way into his voice. "No, you're not the Phantom."

"Of course I am not Il Fantasma," the girl exclaimed, fury in her voice. "I am Christiana Biondi. My _madre—_my _mother _—is Il Fantasma." There was so much anger in her tone that Sherlock was inclined to believe her. He put John's gun away, clasped his hands behind his back, and regarded the girl, this Christiana Biondi. _No more than seventeen, minimal piercings, professional haircut. Nail polish recently done, also professional. Wealthy, then. Speaks good English, slight British accent—time at an English boarding school, I think. So, very wealthy. Expensive clothes, but not good burglary gear; this must be her first time out, or close to it, but she has been trained, hence her ease with the window. More anger than fear, she's not afraid of jail, she's angry at being…betrayed? Yes. Betrayed._

"Your mother sent you tonight." He wasn't asking, but she confirmed his idea.

"_Si_," she spat.

"Explain," he commanded. "And don't be dull."

She glared at him—honestly, those green eyes could hurt someone—and then tears welled up. She dashed them away with an angry, black-gloved hand.

"She told me it would be easy," she said. "She had to leave town."

"Why."

"I do not know. She told me nothing. Always, she goes off, always with no explaining. Always with Signore M." Cristiana pitched her voice high, as if in a mocking imitation of her mother, "Oh Christiana, oh _piccolo_ Christiana, it is such an easy job. You go in, you take the _statuetta_, you get out. _Ecco_: an hour, no more, you have more spending money than ever you dreamed." The girl curled her hands into fists. "She knew. She _knew_—you are a policeman, no?"

"No, actually." Sherlock latched onto one phrase in the girl's diatribe. "Signore M?"

She shrugged. "If I tell you what I know, you will let me go free? You say you are not _la polizio_…" She looked up at him, canny. "I have stolen nothing, I have done nothing to report. You let me go, and I will tell you all."

Sherlock didn't even pretend to consider. There was no reason for him to turn this girl in. "Deal," he said. "Now. Tell me everything."

* * *

_John: Punishment_

January 2nd

January in Florence was rather chilly. Still warmer than London, of course, but John shivered in his jacket. He was hidden behind a small rock wall across from Casa della Lucertola, watching through the window. He had been there since dark, watching for any sign of movement within the house.

The new burn phone in his pocket vibrated suddenly. John, startled, withdrew the device and stared at it. He'd had the phone for a grand total of one day—he'd bought it from a vendor in a palazzo. Save for one text each to Kevin Stone and Cam Jackson to let them know how to get ahold of him, he hadn't used it. So who could be calling him at such a late hour? Kevin was in Los Angeles, which was—he did the mental math—eight hours behind, so it was only four in the afternoon there. But he didn't know why the man would be calling him, rather than texting.

The phone was still buzzing in his hand. John bit his lip, and answered.

"Kevin?"

"Hardly." The voice on the other end was as cold and sardonic as a lizard's glare. "Hello, John."

"Mycroft." John shrank back against the wall, his eyes darting in every direction. Combat adrenaline kicked in, and he was already plotting the best escape rout and the best bits of cover before Mycroft even said another word.

"Before you do anything rash," the elder Holmes said, "I will assure you that I am nowhere near Italy; nor are any of my agents. I'm not coming after you, John."

Wary, John asked, "Why not?"

"Because, quite frankly, you're not worth it." There was more irritation than anger hidden behind Mycroft's seemingly-bored tone. "To most of the world, you're dead. To Sherlock, you are dead and must remain so to protect him. I haven't spoken to my brother since Chicago, but I've been watching him—and the three of Moriarty's operatives that are on his trail."

_Three?_ John's attention was suddenly caught by a light flipping on inside the house. He tensed—then saw Sherlock's silhouette raise a gun. Returning his concentration to the elder Holmes brother, John got to the point. "Why are you calling me, Mycroft?"

"To warn you."

"Warn me."

"Yes." John could almost see the man's eyes narrow. "You left our protective custody, John. I no longer assume any responsibility for you."

"I…didn't really expect you to." Sherlock was apparently interrogating the thief now. John picked up a handful of pebbles and let them slip back through his fingers one at a time.

"No," Mycroft agreed. "But know this, Doctor John Watson: you are on your own now. Not only will you not be protected if Moriarty's agents come after you, but if you prove to be a danger to my brother I will have my men remove you from the picture." The absolute frigidity in Mycroft's voice was at least seventy degrees colder than John had ever heard it before, and he suppressed a shiver. "Have I made myself clear?"

"Transparently," John said through gritted teeth.

There was a sigh from the other end, as if Mycroft was thawing slightly. "I understand your desire to protect Sherlock," he said. "I honestly do. But you are, to put it bluntly, a loose canon, and I cannot afford to risk my brother's life because your affection leads you to do something imprudent."

"Just so I can be clear," John said, his voice hard, "You basically just said that if it was me or Sherlock, you would take me out. Correct?"

A pause. "Yes."

"Then the thing that bothers me most, _Mycroft_," John ground out the name as if it were a personal insult, "Is that you don't get it. You don't have to threaten me, or try to—to _punish _me from afar. If it came down to a choice between me and Sherlock, Sherlock wins out every time."

Mycroft started to say something, but John cut him off.

"After all, that's rather why we're in this mess to begin with."

He snapped the cheap phone shut with a ferocious _clack_.

Mycroft vastly underestimated him, even _after_ the events in the old mill, when John had blown himself up—or thought he had—to save Sherlock's life. For such a brilliant mind, the elder Holmes was absurdly thick at times. John stuffed the phone back into his pocket and resumed his vigil. At least he knew a bit more now than he had before. There were—bare minimum—three of Moriarty's agents trailing Sherlock. John would have to make even more sure he was never spotted. If he could ID the enemy, that would be a bonus.

Because if Sherlock found out that John was alive, he wouldn't last long. And after that conversation with Mycroft, John was sure about one thing:

Neither would he.


	15. Air and Land

_Sherlock: Air_

January 9th

The droning of the plane's engines created a blanket of white noise around Sherlock as he sat, his head back and eyes closed, immersed in his mind palace. Crystalline files of facts, educated deductions, and possible conclusions littered the "floor" as he sorted through them for the seventh time since the flight had left Florence. Christiana Biondi had been most helpful, apparently furious with her mother, who had left her to take the fall for a theft that the Phantom knew would probably be discovered.

Apparently, Signora Biondi—_Il Fantasma_—regularly met with her superior, a mysterious Signore M. She would disappear in the middle of the night, and return days later bearing instructions for a theft, or a warning to lie low for a bit. Signore M—and there was no doubt in Sherlock's mind that this figure of the shadows was the elusive Moriarty—was apparently a very good boss, and kept his employees informed as to the movements of local and international law enforcement agencies. _Il Fantasma_ and her daughter lived in style, with very little risk.

"And where do they meet, your mother and this Signore M?" Sherlock asked the girl.

She had shrugged. Unable to give him anything more than guesses, the best she could tell him was that it was in Rome. Sherlock convinced her to let him into her house, where he rifled through Signora Biondi's desk in search of more answers, but with no luck. Rome was a big city, with more than enough blind alleys, secret rooms, abandoned buildings and quiet cafes to accommodate a thousand such covert meetings.

But at least it was somewhere to start.

* * *

_John: Land_

January 12th

John had shared the back of a trailer with three overly-friendly goats for two days, which was long enough for the situation to lose all humor and move to at least the first circle of someplace very hot. He shoved away a hairy, drooling head one more time and prayed that his driver would stop sometime soon. He desperately needed some air that wasn't goat-scented, and the rattling of the rickety trailer was about to shake his bones out of alignment. His legs ached to be stretched, and he really, really needed to find a bathroom.

He was lucky to find the ride, he had to admit. No bus station with security cameras, no public trains or planes—he was taking no risks that Moriarty's men might see him. He had even managed a bit of a disguise. He hadn't shaved since leaving Chicago, and now he let the beard grow as it would—rather patchy, but it hid his face. A second-hand shop in Florence yielded some nondescript clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. All in all, he felt a bit like a stubby version of Vincent van Gough—complete with straw in his hair and teeth and something that he didn't really want to think about squishing under his foot.

Kevin Stone was proving an invaluable help to John as he trailed Sherlock across Europe. The American managed to track Sherlock's flight information for John and tell him that the detective was on his way to Rome—why, John wasn't sure yet, but he figured it had to have something to do with the girl Sherlock had spoken to in Florence. Judging by the sour look on Sherlock's face when he had left the girl thief's residence, he hadn't found what he was looking for, but something had sent him to Rome. And John was following, ever the faithful guardian.

Hopefully, he could find Sherlock again once they got to the city. And hopefully, Sherlock wouldn't take off again before John even got there—plane travel was so much faster than travel by goat-transport. And hopefully Mycroft didn't send his suit-wearing, briefcase-toting dogs after him. And hopefully Moriarty would be so focused on Sherlock that he wouldn't notice John. There were a lot of "hopefully's"—too many for John's comfort.

Then again—he shifted, and sent a goat scrambling away from him with a loud bleat—comfort was relative at the moment.


	16. Seek and Find

**A/N**: Playing fast and loose with the geography of Rome here. Any Italian readers, please forgive me. Rome refused to cooperate. I call this place Via di Pietralata, because I found out about a catacomb there that was discovered by a cat (there's a bad joke lurking in that statement…) and was fascinated. However, I pretty much just took a quick look at Google maps to get an idea of what the area looked like, and then made up everything. For interior inspiration, I used pictures of the catacombs of St. Callixtus, which isn't anywhere _near _the Via di Pietralata—it's about five miles away. So…suspend your disbelief for me, and enjoy the chapter. Thank you!

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* * *

_Sherlock: Seek_

January 16th

He should have thought of the catacombs before.

After all, they had been used as hideouts and secret meeting places for centuries—the early Christians had hid there when Caesar was hunting them down, burying their dead in the darkness because they weren't allowed to do it elsewhere. Other groups at different times had used the underground chambers for everything from religious meetings, to cemeteries, to shelter in times of war, but on the whole, they were known worldwide as burial grounds for the Church. The main systems were under the care of the papacy, and only select portions were open to tourists, but every so often a new subsystem would come to light. Though harder to gain access to, these catacombs were the perfect place for conducting business best kept from the public eye.

Sherlock had spent a fruitless and frustrating week combing the streets of Rome for anything that might lead him to the elusive Signora Biondi or Moriarty. He was getting very tired of wandering strange cities in search of people or information—especially cities filled with so many tourists. Off season or no, there were far too many people running around with cameras and phrase books and stupid questions; though, in all fairness, it did make it easier for him to blend in.

Finally, however, he had a stroke of luck. The owner of a local pawn shop recognized the photo of Signora Biondi that Sherlock showed him. Apparently, the internationally-infamous thief occasionally pawned small bits of jewelry that she lifted from oblivious tourists. The shop owner was, at first, unwilling to tell Sherlock anything about Biondi, but a few lira slipped across the counter loosened his tongue. Sherlock learned more from the shopkeeper than the man actually said—as usual—and as a result, he found himself standing outside a fenced-off area off the Via di Pietralata, where a private system of catacombs lurked under the busy streets of modern Rome.

It was early in the evening, not quite five o'clock, and the intersection where Sherlock stood was still busy with traffic, both automobile and pedestrian. Twice in the time he had been standing there, Sherlock had received texts from an unknown number that he suspected to be Ross. Whatever else the man might be, he was certainly stubborn. He also knew a lot, which made Sherlock wary. There was always the slimmest of chances that his mysterious guardian was some agent of Moriarty's—or worse, Mycroft's.

He had no time to deal with that right now, though, because across the narrow street, wearing dark glasses and a tacky baseball cap with the word ROME blazoned across the bill, he spotted Signora Biondi.

_Too casual,_ he thought to himself, critically evaluating the woman's movements. _If she were really a tourist, she'd be paying more attention to the vendors and the architecture and taking pictures or looking at a map._ Signora Biondi may have been a great thief, but as an actress she left something to be desired.

Sherlock watched her walk down the sidewalk, glance over her shoulder, and then push open the "locked" gate to the catacomb entrance. He followed her, eyes sharp for any enemy agents as he crossed the street. The gate opened easily, allowing him into the grassy area beyond, where an open maw of earth awaited. Sherlock drew a short torch from his pocket, and walked out of the late afternoon sunlight and into the darkness of the catacombs.

Inside, everything was damp and moist and smelled like a four-day-old mud puddle. Sherlock wrinkled his nose and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Flicking on his torch, he sent the narrow beam sweeping across the wet stone floor. A trail of foot prints led from one puddle, across a drier stretch of floor, and deeper into the tunnels. Signora Biondi had kindly left him a trail to follow.

Slipping on hand into his coat pocket to finger the cold metal of John's gun, Sherlock set off after the thief. She was rather careless, he noted, apparently not believing that anyone would or could follow her in this place. At every place where the catacomb tunnel forked or a side tunnel led off into indiscriminate blackness, Sherlock merely had to examine the floor and spot the slim footprints of his quarry in the thin layer of mud that coated the ground. Deeper and deeper she led him, until he came suddenly into a larger cavern—a place that looked as if it could have once been some sort of forum or hall. Sherlock stopped, his bright eyes darting around the open space and his torchlight dancing across the wet stones.

"You're not nearly as smart as they say."

The amused—and very female—voice echoed around the large room. Sherlock whirled to see a tall, blonde form step out from a side tunnel he had just passed. He backed into the larger room, shining the light of his torch into the face of the woman. "Signora Biondi," he said, pleased that he managed to keep all his surprise out of his voice.

"Oh please, Sherlock," the woman said, unfazed by the light shone in her eyes. "No need to be so formal—not when we're such old friends."

"What?" Sherlock squinted at Biondi, trying to recall where he might have seen her before. Gone were the cheap hat and the dark glasses; now she was well-dressed in a blue blouse and grey pinstriped slacks, an expensive bag slung over her shoulder.

Biondi laughed, reached up, and pulled off the long blonde wig. "Honestly," she said, shaking free the short, reddish hair beneath. "I thought I'd made rather a good impression. You threw away my number, didn't you."

Sherlock's eyes widened, and he mentally kicked himself for not realizing. "You're the waitress from Paris," he said. "The one that disappeared."

"When you went after Dyke, I got out of the country," Biondi shrugged. "Christiana needed help with her history homework anyway. And Italy is quite full of valuable things wasting away in the collections of rich idiots, so I felt a little time at home was due."

"You knew I was following you."

"My dear boy, I've known since the day you arrived in Florence." Biondi reached into her bag and Sherlock drew out John's gun, leveling it on her. She rolled her eyes at him, pulled out a tube of lipstick, and uncapped it. "A girl's got to freshen up in places like this," she said. "Especially after committing a murder."

"What?"

Too late, he heard the scuff of a foot on the stone behind him and felt the subtle difference in air flow.

_Whump_!

Something hit Sherlock—hard—in the back of the head, stunning him and knocking him off balance. He stumbled, and went down to his knees, both his torch and the gun falling from his hands and hitting the floor with a loud clatter. He caught himself against the floor and furiously tried to blink away the fog that threatened to engulf his vision.

"I'm sure _Signore_ Moriarty will be pleased to hear that you're finally out of the picture," Signora Biondi said, bending over him. There was a syringe in her hand, and she pulled back Sherlock's arm. With one smooth motion, she plunged the needle into the flesh of his shoulder and depressed the plunger.

"Nighty-night, Sherlock Holmes," she said. Then, to whoever had attacked Sherlock from behind. "_Laisser le cadavre_."

Leave the body.

As she walked away, Signora Biondi bent over, and picked up his torch. Setting it carefully beside his hand, she ruffled his hair.

"You may need this," she said. "Goodbye, _Signore_ Holmes."

* * *

_John: Find_

January 16th

John's phone chirped with an incoming text just as he spotted Signora Biondi and her henchman exiting the catacombs. Edging casually toward the dark maw of the earth, he drew the phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen.

It was a blank message from Sherlock.

Casualness and care flew out the window, and John ran, bursting through the unlatched gate and sprinting for the tunnels, not caring if Biondi or her sidekick or James Moriarty himself saw him. There was only one reason Sherlock would ever send a blank text—he was in trouble and either didn't have the time or the strength to compose a message.

Footprints in the mud led him down the right corridors, and John ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. If Sherlock died now, before John could make things right again…He thrust the thoughts from his mind and left them in the tunnels behind him.

"Sherlock," he called out. "Sherlock, can you hear me?"

He came to a larger room, nearly a cavern carved out of stone, and spotted his friend kneeling on the wet ground.

"Sherlock!"

The young detective's eyes came up to meet John's face, but the glassy quality sent a pang of fear through the doctor's heart.

"Sherlock, you ok?" He started toward the detective, who scrabbled back, his feet skidding on the wet ground.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was groggy and rasped in his throat, but the disbelief was clear. John ignored the guilt that slammed through him and focused on Sherlock—more specifically, on the fact that he had been drugged. _Pupils contracted, breathing irregular—heart rate elevated. He needs treatment._

"Sherlock, we need to get you out of here—" He reached out to touch his friend, but the detective flinched away as if from a snake.

"Shtay back," he slurred, breath coming in panicked wheezes. "Don't you…don't you come _near_ me."

"I'll explain everything as soon as I can," John pleaded, "Just—come on, Sherlock, come with me. We've got to get you to a hospital."

"You're dead." Sherlock, weak, mumbled, barely fending off John's arm with his own. His eyes were wide, and looked terrified. "You're dead—I killed you."

A spear of remorse pierced John. "You didn't kill me, Sherlock," he promised. "I'm not dead—come on. Come with me, now." He grabbed at Sherlock's arm and hauled the taller man to his feet, supporting most of the weight himself. "You've been poisoned," he told the detective, trying to keep him from giving up on consciousness. "We'll get you to a hospital."

"I killed you," Sherlock rasped. "…killed you. You're…dead…"

"No," John's voice was firm. "No, Sherlock." He half-led, half-dragged the dark-headed young detective down the catacomb corridor, back toward the light, pushing aside for a moment his feelings of guilt. "You didn't kill anyone."

Sherlock didn't answer, and John glanced up just in time to see his eyes roll back in his head as he lost consciousness. The detective's dead weight pulled them both down, but John managed to keep Sherlock's head from hitting the floor. Straightening, he drew his phone from his pocket and dialed a number he thought he'd never have to use again, keeping one hand on Sherlock's neck. The detective's pulse was weak, fluttering against his fingers.

The phone only rang once before picking up.

"Yeah, Mycroft?" John said, weary. "We need help."


	17. Can't and Won't

_Sherlock: Can't_

January 24th

_John stood before Sherlock, his tan jumper in flames that outlined his head in a hellish glow. "You thought I killed them," he said. "You thought I used you—you believed that I was Moriarty's man."_

_There was a gun in Sherlock's hand, but the flames glared too hotly for him to aim. "You're dead," he insisted. "You died—I saw the building burn."_

_"You saw what you wanted to see," John's ghost accused. "You wanted me dead."_

_"That's a lie." Sherlock raised the gun, squinting past the harsh firelight. _

_"Then why did you shoot me?"_

_"What?" Sherlock looked down, and realized that the barrel of his gun was smoking. His eyes went to John, and the fire was out. But a dark stain spread from the center of his chest._

_Sherlock threw aside the gun and caught John as he fell._

_"Murderer," the dying man whispered._

_Flames erupted around Sherlock, and his coat and hair caught instantly. He tried to drag John's body away from the fire, but it was so heavy—like trying to haul a sack full of stones. Then it _was_ a sack full of stones, and the fire was reaching higher and higher and Sherlock realized that he would never escape. There was a special hell reserved for a man who murdered his best friend…And this was it._

"Sherlock!"

Sherlock jerked awake, his eyes flying open and a gasp flooding his lungs with blessedly cool air.

Mycroft stood over him, a look of concern dissolving into his customary noncommittal glare. "You were crying out," he said, with as much emotion as one would mention that the rubbish needed hauling off. "I thought it best to wake you."

"Whe—where am I?" Sherlock swallowed, feeling as if his throat were a gravel pit. "A hospital?"

Mycroft gestured to the various tubes that ran in and out of Sherlock's body and the softly beeping machinery at the head of the bed. "Still deducing, I see," he said with a sardonic drawl. "What gave it away? The faint smell of antiseptic?" The place reeked of it. "The sound outside the door that could only be a nurse walking past wearing size eleven scrubs? Or was it perhaps the vague memory that you, once again, just barely managed to escape death?" The irritation in Mycroft's voice was a well-painted cover for the worry his younger brother could see beneath the surface.

Sherlock blinked. "Is there any water?"

Mycroft sighed and picked up a glass of water from the table beside the bed. "You were poisoned," he said, as Sherlock took eager sips through the blue straw. "Ophilemene."

Sherlock set aside the glass. "The same drug Moriarty used to set up John as a killer."

"Indeed. And also, by the way, what was in that vial you got from Frederick Dyke."

"I should have known," Sherlock muttered. If he had been able to access a lab, he would have found out soon enough, but ophilemene ought to have been his first guess.

"What happened? Ross could only tell us so much."

"Ross?" Sherlock's mind flew back to the catacombs. Il Fantasma was the waitress from Paris. Someone had hit him from behind, and Biondi had injected him with something— ophilemene, apparently—and then…

Then John had been there.

Mycroft was speaking. "He got your text," he explained, "And worried that something was wrong. He found you in the catacombs and called me."

Sherlock shook his head, slowly, trying to make sense of the jumbled, dreamlike memories in his mind, which were presenting the most annoying tendency to mingle with nightmarish images from his dreams… "How long have I been out?"

"Nearly eight days." Mycroft clasped his hands behind his back, looking suddenly very, very old. "Your heart stopped twice. Ross saved your life."

Ross. Ross? Sherlock shook his head, trying to settle what he had seen and what he thought he had seen and what he had dreamed and what he thought perhaps he might have seen in a dream. "Ross," he managed to get out. "He insists he's my guardian angel."

"If there were such a thing, he would be." A momentary expression of regret crossed Mycroft's face.

"Where is he?"

"Gone." Mycroft cleared his throat. "As soon as we knew you were in the clear, he took off."

"You didn't take him back into protective custody?"

The elder Holmes looked uncomfortable. "…No."

Sherlock smirked. "You never actually saw him, did you."

"…No."

_Well done, Ross._

Mycroft leaned over and patted his brother's shoulder. "You should sleep now, Sherlock," he said. "It will be several days before the hospital will release you."

Sherlock faked a yawn. "Try not to start any international incidents while we're here," he said, closing his eyes. "I'd like to recuperate in peace."

He listened until Mycroft's footsteps faded away, then opened his eyes again, staring at the blank ceiling above his head. As hard as he tried, he couldn't convince himself that it was a stranger he had seen in the catacombs. Granted, the memory was fuzzy, and he knew he had been heavily drugged at that point. Hallucinations were certainly possible.

John was dead. Sherlock had seen his charred body—and as much as he tried to delete the memory from his mind, it persisted, staining his nightmares with flames and blood. There was no way anyone could have survived injuries like that. John Watson had died, nearly eight months ago.

So how could he have saved Sherlock's life?

* * *

_John: Won't_

January 24th

John hadn't actually left Rome yet, though he let Mycroft think he had. When the emergency personnel had taken Sherlock away, John followed them to the hospital and waited in the halls for six hours before they finally pronounced Sherlock stable. It was possibly the most agonizing and nerve-wracking six hours of John's life, and he had experienced his share of agonizing and nerve-wracking hours. Twice, Sherlock's heart had stopped, unable to fight the strain of the poison that was taxing his system; and twice, John was certain that the world was going to end.

Both times, though, the doctors had successfully resuscitated him. Just as John was about to fall over with exhaustion—it was nearly midnight, and he hadn't slept more than four hours the night before or eaten a meal all day—a doctor came out and told him, in very heavily-accented English, that his friend would be alright. Touch and go for a bit, she had admitted, but they had gotten the poison out of his system and she didn't see any signs of permanent damage.

Relieved, John had let himself sink into a chair in the lobby, his straw hat shading his face. Mycroft Holmes walked right past him without a second glance when he arrived an hour later, but John took no pleasure in it. He knew that the man was too concerned about the welfare of his brother to care about anything else. He was only glad that he didn't have to try and tell Mycroft that Sherlock hadn't made it. That was a conversation he hoped never to have.

Now, he dozed in a cheap room, nondescript and deep in the tourist district. A neat pile of wrappers attested to the six burgers he had managed to devour—as did the gurgling in his abused stomach. His phone buzzed three separate times before he woke enough to register the sound.

_Three new messages,_ he read with bleary eyes, propping himself up on one elbow. The sheets smelled strongly of bleach, and he sneezed twice, thumbing open the texts and noting that they had been sent _exactly_ twenty minutes apart.

_We need to talk. –SH_

_Ross—answer my texts. –SH_

_John is dead. Who are you? –SH_

John sucked in an apprehensive breath through his teeth. He had hoped that Sherlock had been far enough out of things when he rescued him that the detective wouldn't remember anything. Apparently, something had sunk through, but how much, he didn't know. At least Sherlock seemed uncertain—he wasn't outright accusing 'Ross' of being John Watson…But something was making him question things.

John thought a long time before sending a reply, composing it with care.

_Glad you're feeling better, mate,_ he tapped out. _You brother mentioned this John once—that he was a friend who died. Apparently, I look a bit like him. –Ross_

Hating himself, he pushed send, and got a nearly instant reply.

_We need to talk. Come to the hospital. –SH_

_I'm in Seville_, John lied.

_Come back to Rome. –SH_

_Why? –Ross_

There was a long break before Sherlock finally replied, during which John stared at the phone and wondered if he would ever be able to tell his friend the truth… And if Sherlock could ever forgive him if he did.

_I need you to prove you're not John_. _–SH_

John muttered a low curse. How was he going to get out of this one? He couldn't have left Sherlock to die down there, but the fact that the detective had seen him—hallucinating or not—was going to make things a lot more difficult. If Sherlock even suspected, for the tiniest moment…

_Give me a few days to deal with things here,_ he texted back.

_The doctors say they'll release me by Friday, _Sherlock replied. _Meet me in front of the Spanish Steps on Sunday. Two o'clock. -SH_

_Deal. –Ross_

John sent the text and raked a hand through his hair. Dialing another number, he listened to the other line ring.

"_Hello?"_ came the voice on the other end.

"Mike," John said, his voice weary. "I need to ask you a huge favor…"


	18. Seeing and Believing

_Sherlock: Seeing_

January 27th

The Spanish Steps—the _Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti_—were one of the finest pieces of Roman Baroque-style architecture in the world. A hundred and thirty-eight steps up a steep slope and built in the seventeen hundreds, it was a highly popular tourist destination. Today, with the bright Mediterranean sun shining overhead, throngs of people milled about, snapping pictures and examining maps and doing all the dull things that tourists do.

Sherlock was still feeling a bit weak, but he leaned against the wall of a shop at the bottom of the stairs with as casual an attitude as he could manage. His eyes, shadowed by the high wall above him, darted around, searching the large crowds of tourists for familiar faces.

Or rather…for one very familiar face.

He had _seen_ John's body. The body that the firefighters pulled from that mill had been far too mutilated; there were no signs of life. No one survived that kind of damage.

But he had also _seen_ John that night in the catacombs. Sherlock felt betrayed—by his mind or his friend, one or the other. If he had hallucinated John rescuing him, then his own mind was to blame—oh, yes, there was the little matter of poison to excuse it, but it disgusted him to think that he might delude himself like that. On the other hand, if John was somehow alive and had really been there that night…Sherlock didn't even try to process what he thought about that.

"Sherlock?"

It was an unfamiliar voice—except that it wasn't. Sherlock turned to see a short, blonde man standing before him, wearing a green turtleneck and jeans. Bright green eyes looked out of a face that held an expression of curiosity and sincere concern. "You look dreadful mate," the man said, with the lightest of Scottish brogues.

"Ross?"

The man held out his hand to shake. "Ross Whitaker, at your service."

His eyes never leaving the man's face, Sherlock slowly shook his hand. "You… Thank you," he said. "You saved my life, I understand."

"You sent me a blank text," Ross shrugged. "I figured something was wrong."

They turned, by mutual accord, and began to stroll across the wide, cobblestone plaza, past the white stone fountain in the center. Ross shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled at the clear sky above. "It's nice to finally meet you," he said, "Face to face that is. You, ah…You didn't bring your brother around, did you?"

"No." Mycroft knew nothing about this. "Ross, indulge me: how did we first meet?"

"Guardian angel," Ross chuckled. "Eye in the sky with a panic button in Paris. Sorry for not noticing the thugs, by the way. I feel awful about that."

"Not at all." Sherlock narrowed his gaze at the shorter man. "And…forgive me for asking, but what did you give me for Christmas?"

"Pair of gloves—hope they fit alright. I had a pair just like, and Mycroft mentioned once that they were your favorites. I noticed you had forgotten yours and—poof." Ross shrugged. "Bit of secret Santa."

"I see."

Ross glanced at him, and cleared his throat. "You…ah…You thought I was your friend that night, didn't you?"

"There is a small resemblance." Very small—mostly in the hair and the way he walked. "You were in the military?"

"Indeed I was. Still in the reserves."

That would explain the movement, then. The same ingrained bearing. Sherlock sighed, and let the last hope that he might have seen something more than a hallucination drift from his mind. "Yes, I did think you might have been him."

"You were close?"

Close. What a funny word. John had been his brother more than Mycroft ever had, a better friend than any Sherlock had ever made before or since, and the closest thing he had to a real family. "You could say that."

"He sounds like a good man."

"Indeed." They walked in silence for a long moment.

"Listen—"

"If you don't—"

They both spoke at the same time, and Ross laughed. "You first," he said, nodding his head.

Sherlock shrugged. "I was only going to ask that you not mention this to Mycroft."

"I don't plan on speaking to your brother anytime soon," Ross promised. "His…hospitality is grand, but I felt like a cat in a box full of rabbits—no room to breathe."

"I understand."

"And _I _was only going to say that, if you don't mind, I'll keep following you about—out of sight, of course. You've got too many eyes on you for an open alliance to be of any use to either of us. You won't see me, but I'll keep in touch. I've got some ties that can get me good information too. That's how I found out about _Il Fantasma,_ actually."

"Well," Sherlock said, forcing a smile, "If you have nothing better to do."

"Anything better to do than help the one and only Sherlock Holmes track down the world's greatest criminal mind? Hardly, mate." Ross grinned, and glanced at his watch. "Hate to dash so soon," he apologized, "But if you're convinced that I'm really me, I've got a bit of unfinished business in Seville."

"Right," Sherlock agreed. "Sorry to have taken you from it."

"Not at all—I know how losing a friend can be." A dark look crossed Ross' face, and he shrugged. "Anything I can do to help."

Sherlock watched him go, crossing the white plaza and striding jauntily to the road, where he hailed a cab and rode away, leaving Sherlock standing—dark and tall in the middle of the bright court in front of the Spanish Steps—alone.

* * *

_John: Believing_

January 27th

"You know, I can't help but find this extremely cruel." Mike Waldron sank into the chair across from John and leaned forward on his elbows. "Why not just tell him you're not actually dead? It would make life a lot simpler for all of us."

"Yeah, until somebody puts the two of us in black body bags." John shook his head. "It's not safe for him to know." Around them, the small café bustled with life and conversations in at least four different languages.

"Yeah, mate," Mike argued, "But you should have seen his face."

"He believed you were Ross?"

"Totally. Apparently the fact that I'm short and blonde and still walk like a soldier was enough to convince him. I thought this guy was supposed to be a genius or something?"

"He is," John snapped, defending his friend, "But cut him some slack—he was drugged, and he thinks I'm dead. Mycroft tells me they had a body and everything."

"Dead awful thing to do to your own brother," Mike muttered.

"If the alternative was your brother murdered or half of London in rubble?" John shook his head. "No, this is the right thing to do."

"You might not think that if you had seen the way he picked me apart." Mike ran a hand through his hair. "You'd think I was a fake _Mona Lisa_ or something. He's pretty torn up, mate."

John barked a mirthless laugh, and shook his head, refusing to look at Mike.

"He is!" the other man protested. He held up a hand. "Look—don't argue with me. I know the look on his face though. It's the same look I saw on the other lads when you left the Vipers. You do something to people, John Watson. You…you burrow into them somehow, and if you ever leave, it's like taking off an arm."

John, feeling somewhat flattered but mostly disbelieving and embarrassed, scoffed. "So long as Sherlock believes that I'm in some graveyard in England, he's safe," he said. "And that's the end of it."

Mike shrugged, and leaned back. "It's your life, I guess," he said. "Or, death, I mean."

The two sat without speaking for a minute, and then John stood. "Thanks for your help, Mike," he said. "I wasn't sure you would."

Mike also stood, and shook John's hand. "Took me a bit," he admitted, "But the past is the past. Glad to help an old mate."

They left the café together, then Mike headed for the airport and John returned to his motel. Staring at the local news without really seeing it or understanding a word, John questioned whether or not he had really done the right thing.

_Seeing is believing_, he thought to himself. And he wondered if Sherlock would ever forgive him. He hated to think about it, but maybe after Moriarty was gone, and there was nothing left to chase, John ought to just disappear forever, and leave Sherlock in the belief that he had died.

Because he was pretty sure that, however things turned out, he had dealt their friendship a mortal blow.


	19. Packages and King's

_Sherlock: Packages_

February 2nd

Home at last.

Sherlock dropped his suitcase with a heavy _thump_ beside the door, crossed the room, and sank into his own chair beside his own fireplace, in his own flat, in his own city. Legs sprawling and arms draped limply over the arms of the chair, he heaved a tired sigh.

"Sherlock," came Mrs. Hudson's voice up the stairs. "You've got a package."

"Mm," he grunted loudly in the general direction of the door.

"Luv, my hip won't take those stairs today. You're going to have to come down and fetch it."

"I just got in," he protested. "You open it."

He heard her drop the package on the hall table and tear off the tape.

"You're still going to have to come and get it," Mrs. Hudson said, "Even if it—" She broke off with a scream. "Heavens, Sherlock!"

On his feet faster than thought, Sherlock leaped down the stairs. _Someone just tried to kill you moron—snakes spiders poison bomb_…He landed on the first floor and whipped around the end of the banister, ripping the box from Mrs. Hudson's hands without any regard for his own safety.

"Really, young man," Mrs. Hudson gasped. "If you're going to bring home things like that you can at least have the decency to keep them in your own fridge!" She spun away from him and vanished into her own flat, slamming the door behind him.

Sherlock, breathing hard, looked down into the box.

A severed hand, its bloated fingers wrapped delicately around a small roll of paper, nestled in a deep bed of salt. The entire thing was wrapped in a layer of clear plastic, protecting the hand from air and the air from the—probably quite strong—stench of the decomposing hand. It was a woman's hand, the right one, and—judging by the lack of bruising on the wrist where the member was separated from its rightful arm—had been removed post-mortem. Whoever this hand had belonged to…They wouldn't be reclaiming it any time soon.

Making a mental note to deal with Mrs. Hudson later—this sort of offense probably merited an apology, and perhaps a token of remorse—Sherlock carried the box upstairs, opened the small window in the kitchen, and held his breath.

Though the stench when he opened the bag was not quite as bad as he had expected, it was enough to make him wrinkle his nose, and someone who didn't spend half their waking hours in a mortuary might have gagged. Now that he looked at it more closely, there was no doubt that the cut that severed this hand from the woman's arm had been made after death. There was no postmark on the package, so whoever had sent it had delivered it by hand…Pun most certainly not intended.

Carefully, Sherlock slipped the rolled-up note from the fingers and unfolded it. Actually two slips of paper rolled together, one was short and printed from some nondescript printer on nondescript paper in a nondescript font.

_Sorry about Rome_, it read. _Not my idea. Signora Biondi has been dealt with. I've sent you a little present to make up for the misunderstanding. –JM_

Jim Moriarty. Sherlock glanced down at the severed hand, grimly noting that it was the correct size—almost certainly proof of Signora Biondi's death, though he would have Lestrade run the prints to be sure.

As for the "little present"…Sherlock examined the second sheet of paper—

—And sank down into a chair, leaning against the table for support. He'd know that handwriting anywhere; he had seen it often enough on sticky notes posted to the fridge, or on reminders to clear the urine samples from the freezer before the newest girlfriend dropped by. It was unmistakably the handwriting of John Watson.

The page had been torn from its place in the notebook that Moriarty held, one edge rough. It had been dog-eared at one point and the corner still held the crease. Sherlock's white fingers brushed the softened paper gingerly, the way one might comfort an injured animal. The words on the page, though, made absolutely no sense, as any kind of language. _A cipher_, Sherlock realized, but what sort, he had no idea. It looked as if the entries had been made over the course of several days, each entry dated in the corner. Aimless doodles edged the border, and there were several random words in English—Jennifer Wilson, cab driver, phone, Cardiff—and one entire line that leaped from the rest of the gibberish text:

_The Case of Jennifer Wilson, The Taxi-Driver's Revenge, The Consulting Detective_, _A Study in Pink._ The last title had been underlined several times, and the first three crossed out with a heavy line.

Sherlock let a ghost of a smile cross his face—or perhaps it was a wince.

_"I see you've written up the taxi driver case. _A Study in Pink_…Nice."_

_"…Did you like it?"_

_"Ahm…_no._"_

Though he had been rather fascinated to read someone else's viewpoint. It had irritated and flattered him all at once.

On a whim, Sherlock flipped open his computer and pulled up John's blog. The last thing that had been posted was John's write up of the Baskerville case.

_"What are you calling this one?"_

_ "The Hounds of Baskerville. Decided to go with the obvious."_

_"Hm. You're good with obvious."_

By the time darkness fell and the rumblings in Sherlock's stomach forced him to venture into Mrs. Hudson's lair—er, flat—bearing an apology and a postcard from Rome he had wisely picked up at the airport, he had reread all of John's blog entries. And added one of his own:

_John Watson, erstwhile author of this blog, was murdered on the 4__th__ of May. No one could have asked for a more loyal friend or more complimentary blogger. _

_—Sherlock Holmes_

* * *

_John: King's_

February 7th

John remembered hearing an urban legend once that the area around Platform 10 at King's Cross Station was haunted by some ancient tribal queen. Perhaps he wasn't the only ghost lurking in the busy station today.

This entire enterprise was probably a bad idea, but he was getting a little desperate. He'd gotten back to London only a day after Sherlock—thanks to Mike—but once back in the city, he found himself at a loss. It was really the first time he'd been back since his "death" and while it was wonderful to finally return to familiar surroundings, he felt more ill-at-east than ever. There were too many people here who knew him too well and might break his cover. He had no safe place to rest either, and four nights hunkered down under bridges had left him sore and minus his hat, which someone had nicked while he slept. Better that way, he supposed. Not too many straw hats in London.

But he needed someone he could trust—someone who wouldn't give him away. Someone like Molly Hooper.

That's why he was here, skulking in the shadows at King's Cross, between platforms 9 and 10. He'd used a public library to send an email to Molly—

_Dear Molly,_

_I need your help. You think I'm dead, I know, but it was all a lie and I need you to help me. I'll prove it's me—the last time I saw you was in the lab at the hospital. We all ate sandwiches and figured out about the flour. Please meet me at noon at Platform 10, King's Cross Station._

_-John._

So it wasn't the most eloquent email ever—he'd been too uneasy in the library to take his time in composing. He wasn't even sure she'd come, but it was still a minute to noon, and King's was fuming with the midday rush.

There.

He spotted her down the line, weaving in and out of the crowd with a look of anxiety on her pretty face. He watched her for a minute, assuring himself that she was alone, and then—just as she was about to pass him by—called out, "Molly."

She whirled, eyes wide. "John?"

"In the flesh," he said, an unstoppable grin spreading across his face.

She stepped toward him—then stopped, shifting from one foot to the other as if unsure whether to run, or to fling herself at him. John, normally not one to encourage physical contact, opened his arms and Molly obliged him with a tight hug. He felt something in him that had been cold come back to life, and he let the embrace last a bit longer than he had planned. Then, clearing his throat, he stpped back.

Molly dashed her hand across her eyes and half-smiled, half-glared at him. "You were _dead_," she accused. "There was a bomb. And a funeral—I went."

"That's kind of you," John said, attempting a joke.

She shook her head. "No—no, you were _dead_. How…how can you not be dead?" She took in his new beard and grungy hair—and the smile started to outweigh the glare. "You look dreadful. I mean—it's wonderful. You're alive, and I'm glad to see you. And that you're not dead, but—"

John held up a hand with a grin, "I know, I know," he stopped her. "I'm alive, but I imagine I look more like one of the walking dead."

Molly giggled. "Maybe," she agreed. "You said—you said you wanted help. What do you need?"

"You," he admitted simply. "Or rather, your help."

"I can get you a shower," she offered. "And a bed—and a meal, for sure."

"Thanks so much," John said in relief. "And…not a word to Sherlock."

"Why not?" She glanced around, as if afraid Sherlock would come around the corner at any moment. "He should know—you shouldn't keep this from him."

John winced. She was right, and he knew it. She was right—Mike was right…It was the worst thing he could do to keep this from his friend. Danger or no, the longer this went the smaller his chances of every regaining Sherlock's trust.

"Can we talk over food?" he dodged the issue. "I haven't had more than an egg sandwich and coffee in two days."

Molly softened. "Of course. Come with me. I'll take you to my flat."

"Thank you," John repeated, and allowed himself to finally relax a bit. "I was…sort of afraid you wouldn't come," he added, following her toward the station's exit.

She glanced reprovingly over her shoulder. "You're my friend," she said. "Friends help each other."

John was just happy to once again find himself in a world that had room for friends.

Even if there were enemies too.


	20. Smoke and Mirrors

**A/N**: I know I already used "smoke" once, back in the chapter "Smoke and Fire." But "Smoke and Mirrors" just worked so well...

* * *

_Sherlock: Smoke_

February 11th

He wasn't sure why he had come back here, to Gillian Mills. There was nothing left in the burned-out husk to gather evidence from.

Sherlock stood, a lone figure in the vast dead space of the dilapidated parking lot, dwarfed by the decaying hulk. He stared at it critically, the way a master art critic might examine a painting.

This was where it had ended—where Moriarty had lured them and somehow trapped John. Sherlock didn't _know_ what had happened. He told himself that this was the reason looking at the blackened wreckage made him so sick. He didn't know why John had stayed behind, or how Moriarty had gotten to him, or—of all things—_why_ John had triggered the bomb. Sherlock could have saved him, he was certain, if the army doctor would have just let him know what was going on.

_"Are you really that stupid? I killed those people, Sherlock. All of them. I planted my own dog tags, I picked the initials—it was all me!"_

_"Why are you saying this?"_

_"Because you're too idiotic to spot it yourself. …We used you. I was his mole. His man on the inside."_

"No offense, John," Sherlock muttered aloud, his voice muffled by the wind that whipped around him, "But you're really not clever enough for that." There was absolutely no way for John Watson to have been in league with Moriarty—No one could be that good of an actor for that long. Besides…

_"Listen John—just listen. The first time we met – that first night, you shot a man to save my life. …You barely knew me, and you were willing to take a life and risk your freedom to keep me alive."_

_ "No one could be that loyal."_

Sherlock said again what he had said that day, certainty making his voice solid.

"You could."

Of all the people in this world, he had somehow met the fantastically loyal person that was John H. Watson. The odds of him actually meeting someone who not only put up with his odd habits and lack of manners but was willing to be his _friend_ were astronomical. "You could."

Sherlock pulled the sheet torn from John's notebook out of his pocket and examined it again, the wind flicking at the edges of the page and threatening to rip it from his fingers. He'd spent hours trying to crack the code that concealed his dead friend's words, but to no avail. He was beginning to suspect that it wasn't only encoded, but also in another language—John had at least a working knowledge of several. It could even be some hodgepodge mixture of more than one language.

He closed his eyes, images flashing across his brain.

An explosion, searing his retinas.

Emergency personnel rushing toward the building.

A thing only half-recognizable as once human in a body bag.

And rain, falling from the sky, cold and uncaring.

Sherlock stuffed the page back in his pocket and turned his back on the wreck that had once been Gillian Mills.

Moriarty had given him ten months. He was down to eight. If it was the last thing he ever did, Sherlock Holmes was going to find Moriarty. And when he found him, he was going to take him to a remote location and slowly—very, very slowly—murder him.

* * *

_John: Mirrors_

February 11th

John stared into the mirror above Molly's bathroom sink, turning his head this way and that.

"Come on out, let's see!"

He pushed open the door. "I'm not really sure…" he said.

Molly actually took a step back. "Well, I'd certainly never recognize you," she managed, stifling a giggle. "But I'd probably be too busy running away."

John groaned. "I look like a serial killer."

Molly had purchased some dark brown hair dye, and John had spent the last hour trying to tint his hair and beard—and not the rest of the bathroom. He stepped back and looked in the mirror again. "Well," he sighed. "The good thing is that I could probably walk right up to Sherlock in this get up, and he wouldn't even blink."

That wiped the smile right off Molly's face. She turned and walked down the hall to the kitchen, her marmalade cat winding around her ankles. John followed her. "Molly, you know I've explained this—"

"I know, I know—" she said, putting up her hands. "I just…John, it's not right. If it were switched, you'd want him to tell you, right?"

"Of course, but—"

"How do you know Jim—" she stopped herself, breathed out through her nose, and tried again. "Sorry. Moriarty. How do you know Moriarty will do anything? It seems like he'd still only go after you. He wants to…to _play_ with Sherlock, right?"

"Right…"

"And if he killed Sherlock, his game would be over. Why would he do that?"

John looked at her as the wheels began to turn. "I don't know." He sank into a chair at the kitchen table. "Mycroft said—"

"Mycroft doesn't know everything."

John snorted. "He nearly does."

But he thought back to the warehouse, and what Moriarty had said. "He told me if I didn't set off the bomb, he'd blow up the Underground."

Molly shivered. "I had him over, you know," she said. "We watched _Glee_."

"And you didn't realize _then_ that he was a psychopath?" John managed a grin at her. "Kidding."

She gave a little laugh, but he could tell her heart wasn't in it. "Would he really? Blow up the Underground, I mean."

John shook his head. "I don't know." One tiny threat. Well—alright, one massive threat. But it was the only thing keeping him from running straight down to Baker Street and banging on the door this instant. If only he knew one way or the other…Would Moriarty do it? No—John knew the answer to that one: in a heartbeat. The real question was, _could_ he?

Wrong again. John shuffled his thoughts back into order. "The real question is," he said, "Is it worth the risk?" And the answer, of course, was no. "I can't take the chance, Molly. Besides, even if Moriarty _didn't _blow up half of London, and even if he _didn't_ kill Sherlock—he would still try to get me out of the game again. And who knows what could happen in the crossfire."

Molly nodded slowly as her cat—Toby—jumped up on the table. She stroked his back. "You're right," she sighed. "But it's all wrong."

John understood perfectly.

"I know."

* * *

.o

o.

**A/N2**: Watch for tomorrow's Valentine's Day Special: "Sugar and Spice"!


	21. Sugar and Spice

_John: Sugar_

February 14th

"Happy St. Valentines, John," Molly chirped, smiling up at him as he entered the kitchen.

"Ah…Happy Valentines to you," he replied, somewhat taken aback. He looked down at the concoction she was stirring in a bowl. "What is…that?" It was bright pink and the consistency of thin mud.

She beamed at him. "Pancake batter!"

"…Pink…pancakes?"

"It's something my dad used to do," she explained. "On St. Patrick's day he made green ones, on Easter they were multicolored, and on Valentine's…" she gestured at the bowl. "Pink!"

John couldn't help but smile. He glanced at the clock—only seven in the morning. "Are you doing anything for Valentine's?" he asked, afraid it might be prying. "I mean—it's none of my business, but—"

She shook her head. "I'm not seeing anyone. Just me and Toby. And you, now."

John smirked, and started getting out plates to set the table. "You should really stop taking in strays."

"Don't be silly." Molly spooned the first dollop of batter onto the skillet on the stove, where it spread out with a hissing sound. She grinned at him. "Toby wasn't a stray."

The pancakes, John discovered, tasted no different than ordinary ones, for all that when you cut into one it was nearly neon pink inside. Molly surprised him by shaking powdered sugar over her pancakes, rather than syrup. She convinced him to try it, but he made the mistake of inhaling as he took a bite and ended up choking on the sugar while Molly hurried to pour him more milk to wash it down. In the muddle, Toby somehow got a hold of John's pancake and dragged it into the floor, where he ate it as daintily as a cat covered in powdered sugar can eat anything—that is to say, quite daintily.

When they'd cleaned up the mess and John could breathe again, he asked, "So…you're not seeing anyone?"

"No." She looked at him sheepishly, and John understood.

"Ah," he said, taking a bite—of syrup-covered pancake this time. "You should send him a card."

"Who?" Molly blushed to the roots of her hair and got up to top off her already mostly-full glass.

"Sherlock." He knew she still had a massive crush on Sherlock. He wondered—though he'd never ask her or even suggest such a thing—if that was why she had gone out with Moriarty, if even through the criminal mastermind's clueless-and-harmless act, she had seen some of the same feverish intelligence that drove Sherlock.

"Sherlock?"

John grinned at her. "Just for fun," he suggested. "Something silly—not serious." It would almost be worth the danger of a trip to Baker Street to see Sherlock's face when he opened it.

Molly shook her head, but John could see the wheels turning in her head. "I've got to get to work," she said, glancing up at the clock. "I'll see you later, ok?"

"Bye." John waited until she was out the door, and then said conspiratorially to Toby. "She'll do it."

* * *

_Sherlock: Spice_

February 14th

Sherlock paid the cabdriver and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of 221b. Results had come in on the hand, and both fingerprints and DNA confirmed: it was Signora Gabrielle Biondi. Sherlock had to admit to a bit of grotesque admiration for Moriarty's efficiency: the woman had acted on her own in trying to kill Sherlock, and Moriarty had punished her for it. Perhaps his methods were a bit…strong, but one could admire the control under which he kept his organization. And not only had the criminal mastermind dealt with the insubordination, but he had sent a token of apology to Sherlock…Granted, it was an apology that let Sherlock know who was _really_ in control of this whole game, but still.

Now if he could only make some sense of that gibberish of John's. There probably wasn't anything valuable in there, but if Sherlock could crack the code before Moriarty, he would be one up on him.

He pushed open the door of the flat and stepped inside, already slipping his coat from his shoulders. He paused, tilting his head.

Laughter—feminine laughter—echoed down from upstairs. _Who in the world…?_

Shedding his coat and draping it over the banister as he went, Sherlock climbed the stairs—not to the second level, but to the third. John's territory.

Sherlock paused a moment on the landing. He hadn't been up here much when John was alive, and not at all since…Well. But that laughter sounded like—

He gave the door a little push, and it swung open, revealing Mrs. Hudson and—of all people—Molly Hooper.

"Oh! Sherlock," Mrs. Hudson said, her hand at her heart. "You gave me a fright. Why, you make no noise at all coming up. Like a cat, he is," she added aside to Molly. "Sometimes I don't hear him make a noise for days—and sometimes it's like a war zone."

Molly, kneeling on the floor amid a pile of folded clothes, was biting her lower lip, watching him. Sherlock let his eyes sweep across the room, noting the layer of dust that had accumulated on everything, the open-and-empty dresser drawers, and the box beside Molly that was half full of clothes. John's clothes.

"We're…We're collecting for charity," Molly stammered, two bright spots of color staining her cheeks.

"You don't lie well, Molly," Sherlock said. He could tell by the way she'd styled her hair and the fact that her trousers were ironed with a sharp crease and the bit of makeup around her eyes—along with the new lines at her temple—that there was a new man in her life. Probably one she worried a bit about, possibly because he kept odd hours…But more likely because after the debacle of her relationship with Jim Moriarty she over-analyzed every man that showed her any attention. He was a bit surprised, he rather thought her schoolgirl crush on him would hold out strongly enough to fend off any other suitors for at least a bit longer, but it would be a bit of a relief if this new fellow managed to distract her from Sherlock so he could finally get some work done.

"Your boyfriend is welcome to any of the clothes," he said, though a small pang went through him at the words. He kept his face aloof. "Leave the coat, and don't bother anything else. I'll be downstairs."

He turned to go, wondering why in the world he could possibly care that they were taking John's old clothes. It wasn't as if John would ever need them again. They were just gathering dust up here—though to be honest, Sherlock had tried very hard to keep from contemplating the job of going through John's things, which would need to be done at some point. He'd been busy enough, though, jetting around the world, that he'd let the thought settle in the back of his mind, comfortably procrastinated.

"You don't…You don't mind, then?" Molly sounded both relieved and somewhat…hurt, which was odd, and he'd have to figure out that particular combination of human emotions later.

He half-turned, giving her a quizzical look. "They're clothes. Meant to be worn. John won't be wearing them, but they're still perfectly good, ergo: someone else should wear them."

Mrs. Hudson, who had been folding a grey jumper, smoothed it with her weathered hands. "I remember John wearing this one," she said fondly. "Made him look very grown up."

Molly bit her lip again and looked up at Sherlock.

He didn't want to hear this. Didn't want to hear them reminiscing, as if it were all over. John's killer was still out there—Sherlock would have time for nostalgia when Moriarty was dead at his feet.

Turning, he went back downstairs to his own portion of the flat and put on water to boil for tea. He heard Molly come down behind him, but didn't look around to acknowledge her presence until she cleared her throat.

"Caught a cold, have we?" His voice was a bit more biting than he had intended, but Molly didn't take the hint.

"I brought you something," she said. Sherlock pulled open a cabinet and reached up for a mug, looking over his arm at her.

"Well?"

She gave a half smile and pulled a small, red-ribboned box from behind her back. "Happy St. Valentine's day," she said, extending the box over the table. "I mean—it's not like that. It's not a gift like that. It's just—I thought you would like it, and someone told me to and…" She sighed and looked down, still holding the box outstretched. "It's for you."

Deliberately, Sherlock set his mug down on the counter and took the proffered box. "Mexican hot cocoa?" he asked, raising a brow.

"It's good," Molly insisted. "It's got cinnamon or red pepper or something in it. It's…It's good."

Sherlock's mouth twitched. "Thank…you," he managed.

Molly took that as permission to leave. "We won't be much longer," she called back, scurrying out of the room and back upstairs.

Sherlock looked at the box in his hand. _Mexican hot cocoa. Well_. He had the water heating, he might as well try it.


End file.
